NVIDIA Accelerated FreeBSD Graphics Driver README and Installation Guide
NVIDIA Corporation
Last Updated: 2008/04/30
Most Recent Driver Version: 173.14.38
Published by
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95050
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______________________________________________________________________________
TABLE OF CONTENTS
______________________________________________________________________________
Chapter 1. Introduction
Chapter 2. Installing the NVIDIA Driver
Chapter 3. Using Linux Compatibility Support
Chapter 4. Configuring X for the NVIDIA Driver
Chapter 5. Frequently Asked Questions
Chapter 6. Common Problems
Chapter 7. Known Issues
Chapter 8. Specifying OpenGL Environment Variable Settings
Chapter 9. Configuring AGP
Chapter 10. Configuring TwinView
Chapter 11. Configuring GLX in Xinerama
Chapter 12. Configuring Multiple X Screens on One Card
Chapter 13. Configuring TV-Out
Chapter 14. Using the XRandR Extension
Chapter 15. Configuring a Notebook
Chapter 16. Programming Modes
Chapter 17. Configuring Flipping and UBB
Chapter 18. Using the X Composite Extension
Chapter 19. Using the nvidia-settings Utility
Chapter 20. Configuring SLI and Multi-GPU FrameRendering
Chapter 21. Configuring Frame Lock and Genlock
Chapter 22. Configuring SDI Video Output
Chapter 23. Configuring Depth 30 Displays
Chapter 24. NVIDIA Contact Info and Additional Resources
Chapter 25. Credits
Chapter 26. Acknowledgements
Appendix A. Minimum Software Requirements
Appendix B. Installed Components
Appendix C. The Sysctl Interface
Appendix D. Configuring Low-level Parameters
Appendix A. Supported NVIDIA GPU Products
Appendix B. X Config Options
Appendix C. Display Device Names
Appendix D. GLX Support
Appendix E. Dots Per Inch
Appendix F. XvMC Support
______________________________________________________________________________
Chapter 1. Introduction
______________________________________________________________________________
1A. ABOUT THE NVIDIA ACCELERATED FREEBSD GRAPHICS DRIVER
The NVIDIA Accelerated FreeBSD Graphics Driver brings accelerated 2D
functionality and high-performance OpenGL support to FreeBSD x86 with the use
of NVIDIA graphics processing units (GPUs).
These drivers provide optimized hardware acceleration for OpenGL and X
applications and support nearly all recent NVIDIA GPU products (see Appendix E
for a complete list of supported GPUs). TwinView, TV-Out and flat panel
displays are also supported.
1B. ABOUT THIS DOCUMENT
This document provides instructions for the installation and use of the NVIDIA
Accelerated FreeBSD Graphics Driver. Chapter 2, Chapter 3 and Chapter 4 walk
the user through the process of downloading, installing and configuring the
driver. Chapter 5 addresses frequently asked questions about the installation
process, and Chapter 6 provides solutions to common problems. The remaining
chapters include details on different features of the NVIDIA FreeBSD Driver.
Frequently asked questions about specific tasks are included in the relevant
chapters.
1C. ABOUT THE AUDIENCE
It is assumed that the user and reader of this document has at least a basic
understanding of FreeBSD techniques and terminology. However, new FreeBSD
users can refer to for details on parts of the installation process.
1D. ADDITIONAL INFORMATION
In case additional information is required, Chapter 24 provides contact
information for NVIDIA FreeBSD driver resources, as well as a brief listing of
external resources.
______________________________________________________________________________
Appendix A. Minimum Software Requirements
______________________________________________________________________________
The official minimum software requirements for the NVIDIA FreeBSD Graphics
Driver are as follows:
Software Element Min Requirement
---------------------------------- ----------------------------------
Kernel FreeBSD 5-STABLE (5.3 or later)
XFree86/X.Org 4.2/6.7.0
Additionally, the kernel source tree must be installed in /usr/src/sys
(package 'ssys' installed)
Note that FreeBSD -STABLE versions older than FreeBSD 5.3 and FreeBSD 6.x/7.x
-CURRENT development snapshots are not supported.
______________________________________________________________________________
Chapter 2. Installing the NVIDIA Driver
______________________________________________________________________________
This installation procedure will likely be simplified further in the future,
but for the moment you will need to download the NVIDIA FreeBSD Graphics
Driver archives from the NVIDIA website, extract them to a temporary location
of your choice, and run the following from the root of the extracted directory
hierarchy:
% make install
This will compile the NVIDIA FreeBSD kernel module, install it, and kldload
it. It will also remove any conflicting OpenGL libraries, and install the
NVIDIA OpenGL libraries. The '/dev/nvidia' device files will be created
(unless the system is using devfs), and your '/boot/loader.conf' file will be
updated to automatically load the NVIDIA kernel module on boot, as well as the
Linux ABI compatiability module should you not have it compiled into your
kernel.
______________________________________________________________________________
Appendix B. Installed Components
______________________________________________________________________________
The NVIDIA Accelerated FreeBSD Graphics Driver consists of the following
components.
Installed File Location
---------------------------------- ----------------------------------
nvidia.ko /boot/modules
libGL.so /usr/X11R6/lib
libGL.so.1 /usr/X11R6/lib
libnvidia-tls.so /usr/X11R6/lib
libnvidia-tls.so.1 /usr/X11R6/lib
libnvidia-cfg.so /usr/X11R6/lib
libnvidia-cfg.so.1 /usr/X11R6/lib
libGLcore.so /usr/X11R6/lib
libGLcore.so.1 /usr/X11R6/lib
nvidia_drv.so /usr/X11R6/lib/modules/drivers
libglx.so /usr/X11R6/lib/modules/extensions
libglx.so.1 /usr/X11R6/lib/modules/extensions
nvidia-xconfig /usr/X11R6/bin
nvidia-xconfig.1 /usr/X11R6/man/man1
nvidia-settings /usr/X11R6/bin
nvidia-settings.1 /usr/X11R6/man/man1
nvidia0 /dev
nvidia1 /dev
nvidia2 /dev
nvidia3 /dev
nvidiactl /dev
libGL.so.173.14.38 /compat/linux/usr/lib
libnvidia-tls.so.173.14.38 /compat/linux/usr/lib
libGLcore.so.173.14.38 /compat/linux/usr/lib
______________________________________________________________________________
Chapter 3. Using Linux Compatibility Support
______________________________________________________________________________
If you wish to run Linux OpenGL applications on your FreeBSD computer, you
will need to make sure that several prerequisites are met.
First, you should follow the basic Linux compatibility installation guide in
the FreeBSD Handbook (install the linux_base package, etc). Once the basic
components are in place, you will need to install the NVIDIA Linux OpenGL
libraries in '/compat/linux/usr/lib' (do not brandelf them!); if the
'/compat/linux/usr/lib/' directory exists when you install the FreeBSD driver,
the Linux compatibility OpenGL libraries will automatically be installed.
Additionally, the 'nvidia.ko' kernel module needs to be built with support for
the Linux ABI compatibility layer. This is the case by default; as a
consequence, the 'nvidia.ko' kernel module requires the 'linux.ko' module to
be loaded.
Note: If you have no need for Linux ABI compatibility and do not wish to load
'linux.ko', you can build the 'nvidia.ko' kernel module without support for
the Linux ABI compatibility layer (see 'nv-freebsd.h' for details).
______________________________________________________________________________
Chapter 4. Configuring X for the NVIDIA Driver
______________________________________________________________________________
The X configuration file provides a means to configure the X server. This
section describes the settings necessary to enable the NVIDIA driver. A
comprehensive list of parameters is provided in Appendix F.
The NVIDIA Driver includes a utility called nvidia-xconfig, which is designed
to make editing the X configuration file easy. You can also edit it by hand.
4A. USING NVIDIA-XCONFIG TO CONFIGURE THE X SERVER
nvidia-xconfig will find the X configuration file and modify it to use the
NVIDIA X driver. In most cases, you can simply answer "Yes" when the installer
asks if it should run it. If you need to reconfigure your X server later, you
can run nvidia-xconfig again from a terminal. nvidia-xconfig will make a
backup copy of your configuration file before modifying it.
Note that the X server must be restarted for any changes to its configuration
file to take effect.
More information about nvidia-xconfig can be found in the nvidia-xconfig
manual page by running.
% man nvidia-xconfig
4B. MANUALLY EDITING THE CONFIGURATION FILE
In April 2004 the X.Org Foundation released an X server based on the XFree86
server. While your release may use the X.Org X server, rather than XFree86,
the differences between the two should have no impact on NVIDIA FreeBSD users
with two exceptions:
o The X.Org configuration file is '/etc/X11/xorg.conf' while the XFree86
configuration file is '/etc/X11/XF86Config'. The files use the same
syntax. This document refers to both files as "the X config file".
o The X.Org log file is '/var/log/Xorg.#.log' while the XFree86 log file is
'/var/log/XFree86.#.log' (where '#' is the server number -- usually 0).
The format of the log files is nearly identical. This document refers to
both files as "the X log file".
In order for any changes to be read into the X server, you must edit the file
used by the server. While it is not unreasonable to simply edit both files, it
is easy to determine the correct file by searching for the line
(==) Using config file:
in the X log file. This line indicates the name of the X config file in use.
If you do not have a working X config file, there are a few different ways to
obtain one. A sample config file is included both with the XFree86
distribution and with the NVIDIA driver package (at
'/usr/X11R6/share/doc/NVIDIA_GLX-1.0/'). Tools for generating a config file
(such as 'xf86config') are generally included with FreeBSD. Additional
information on the X config syntax can be found in the XF86Config manual page
(`man XF86Config` or `man xorg.conf`).
If you have a working X config file for a different driver (such as the "nv"
or "vesa" driver), then simply edit the file as follows.
Remove the line:
Driver "nv"
(or Driver "vesa")
(or Driver "fbdev")
and replace it with the line:
Driver "nvidia"
Remove the following lines:
Load "dri"
Load "GLCore"
In the "Module" section of the file, add the line (if it does not already
exist):
Load "glx"
If the X config file does not have a "Module" section, you can safely skip the
last step if the X server installed on your system is an X.Org X server or an
XFree86 X release version 4.4.0 or greater. If you are using an older XFree86
X server, add the following to your X config file:
Section "Module"
Load "extmod"
Load "dbe"
Load "type1"
Load "freetype"
Load "glx"
EndSection
There are numerous options that may be added to the X config file to tune the
NVIDIA X driver. See Appendix F for a complete list of these options.
Once you have completed these edits to the X config file, you may restart X
and begin using the accelerated OpenGL libraries. After restarting X, any
OpenGL application should automatically use the new NVIDIA libraries. (NOTE:
If you encounter any problems, see Chapter 6 for common problem diagnoses.)
______________________________________________________________________________
Chapter 5. Frequently Asked Questions
______________________________________________________________________________
This section provides answers to frequently asked questions associated with
the NVIDIA FreeBSD x86 Driver and its installation. Common problem diagnoses
can be found in Chapter 6 and tips for new users can be found in . Also,
detailed information for specific setups is provided in the Appendices.
NVIDIA DRIVER
Q. Where should I start when diagnosing display problems?
A. One of the most useful tools for diagnosing problems is the X log file in
'/var/log'. Lines that begin with "(II)" are information, "(WW)" are
warnings, and "(EE)" are errors. You should make sure that the correct
config file (i.e. the config file you are editing) is being used; look for
the line that begins with:
(==) Using config file:
Also make sure that the NVIDIA driver is being used, rather than the "nv"
or "vesa" driver. Search for
(II) LoadModule: "nvidia"
Lines from the driver should begin with:
(II) NVIDIA(0)
Q. How can I increase the amount of data printed in the X log file?
A. By default, the NVIDIA X driver prints relatively few messages to stderr
and the X log file. If you need to troubleshoot, then it may be helpful to
enable more verbose output by using the X command line options -verbose and
-logverbose, which can be used to set the verbosity level for the 'stderr'
and log file messages, respectively. The NVIDIA X driver will output more
messages when the verbosity level is at or above 5 (X defaults to verbosity
level 1 for 'stderr' and level 3 for the log file). So, to enable verbose
messaging from the NVIDIA X driver to both the log file and 'stderr', you
could start X with the verbosity level set to 5, by doing the following
% startx -- -verbose 5 -logverbose 5
Q. I have read that the NVIDIA FreeBSD Driver is not a native driver, but sits
on top of the Linux ABI compatibility layer. Is this true?
A. No, the NVIDIA FreeBSD Graphics Driver is a native driver. It does provide
Linux OpenGL libraries in addition to the native, FreeBSD libraries to
enable users to run Linux OpenGL applications.
Q. Is the NVIDIA FreeBSD Accelerated Graphics Driver thread-safe?
A. This release is thread-safe on FreeBSD 5.3 or later systems making use of
the libpthread or libthr KSE threading libraries. On these systems, the
NVIDIA Linux ABI compatibility libraries are fully thread-safe as well.
Q. Why can't the Linux compatibility libraries correctly determine if they are
used in a multithreaded application?
A. The Linux compatibility libraries are not able to correctly determine if
they are used in a multithreaded application because the %gs segment
register is not initialized correctly for Linux compatibility.
The '__GL_SINGLE_THREADED' environment variable (set to "1") can be used to
work around this issue, but at the cost of thread-safeness.
Q. Why do applications that use DGA graphics fail?
A. The NVIDIA driver does not support the graphics component of the
XFree86-DGA (Direct Graphics Access) extension. Applications can use the
XDGASelectInput() function to acquire relative pointer motion, but
graphics-related functions such as XDGASetMode() and XDGAOpenFramebuffer()
will fail.
The graphics component of XFree86-DGA is not supported because it requires
a CPU mapping of framebuffer memory. As graphics cards ship with increasing
quantities of video memory, the NVIDIA X driver has had to switch to a more
dynamic memory mapping scheme that is incompatible with DGA. Furthermore,
DGA does not cooperate with other graphics rendering libraries such as Xlib
and OpenGL because it accesses GPU resources directly.
NVIDIA recommends that applications use OpenGL or Xlib, rather than DGA,
for graphics rendering. Using rendering libraries other than DGA will yield
better performance and improve interoperability with other X applications.
Q. My kernel log contains messages that are prefixed with "Xid"; what do these
messages mean?
A. "Xid" messages indicate that a general GPU error occurred, most often due
to the driver misprogramming the GPU or to corruption of the commands sent
to the GPU. These messages provide diagnostic information that can be used
by NVIDIA to aid in debugging reported problems.
Q. On what NVIDIA hardware is the EXT_framebuffer_object OpenGL extension
supported?
A. EXT_framebuffer_object is supported on GeForce FX, Quadro FX, and newer
GPUs.
Q. I use the Coolbits overclocking interface to adjust my graphics card's
clock frequencies, but the defaults are reset whenever X is restarted. How
do I make my changes persistent?
A. Clock frequency settings are not saved/restored automatically by default to
avoid potential stability and other problems that may be encountered if the
chosen frequency settings differ from the defaults qualified by the
manufacturer. You can use the command line below in '~/.xinitrc' to
automatically apply custom clock frequency settings when the X server is
started:
# nvidia-settings -a GPUOverclockingState=1 -a
GPU2DClockFreqs=, -a GPU3DClockFreqs=,
Here '' and '' are the desired GPU and video memory frequencies
(in MHz), respectively.
Q. Why is the refresh rate not reported correctly by utilities that use the
XRandR X extension (e.g., the GNOME "Screen Resolution Preferences" panel,
`xrandr -q`, etc)?
A. The XRandR X extension is not presently aware of multiple display devices
on a single X screen; it only sees the MetaMode bounding box, which may
contain one or more actual modes. This means that if multiple MetaModes
have the same bounding box, XRandR will not be able to distinguish between
them.
In order to support DynamicTwinView, the NVIDIA X driver must make each
MetaMode appear to be unique to XRandR. Presently, the NVIDIA X driver
accomplishes this by using the refresh rate as a unique identifier.
You can use `nvidia-settings -q RefreshRate` to query the actual refresh
rate on each display device.
This behavior can be disabled by setting the X configuration option
"DynamicTwinView" to FALSE.
For details, see Chapter 10.
Q. Why does starting certain applications result in Xlib error messages
indicating extensions like "XFree86-VidModeExtension" or "SHAPE" are
missing?
A. If your X config file has a "Module" section that does not list the
"extmod" module, some X server extensions may be missing, resulting in
error messages of the form:
Xlib: extension "SHAPE" missing on display ":0.0"
Xlib: extension "XFree86-VidModeExtension" missing on display ":0.0"
Xlib: extension "XFree86-DGA" missing on display ":0.0"
You can solve this problem by adding the line below to your X config file's
"Module" section:
Load "extmod"
______________________________________________________________________________
Chapter 6. Common Problems
______________________________________________________________________________
This section provides solutions to common problems associated with the NVIDIA
FreeBSD x86 Driver.
Q. My X server fails to start, and my X log file contains the error:
(EE) NVIDIA(0): The NVIDIA kernel module does not appear to
(EE) NVIDIA(0): be receiving interrupts generated by the NVIDIA
graphics
(EE) NVIDIA(0): device PCI:x:x:x. Please see the COMMON PROBLEMS
(EE) NVIDIA(0): section in the README for additional information.
A. This can be caused by a variety of problems, such as PCI IRQ routing
errors, I/O APIC problems or conflicts with other devices sharing the IRQ
(or their drivers).
If possible, configure your system such that your graphics card does not
share its IRQ with other devices (try moving the graphics card to another
slot if applicable, unload/disable the driver(s) for the device(s) sharing
the card's IRQ, or remove/disable the device(s)).
Q. My X server fails to start, and my X log file contains the error:
(EE) NVIDIA(0): The interrupt for NVIDIA graphics device PCI:x:x:x
(EE) NVIDIA(0): appears to be edge-triggered. Please see the COMMON
(EE) NVIDIA(0): PROBLEMS section in the README for additional
information.
A. An edge-triggered interrupt means that the kernel has programmed the
interrupt as edge-triggered rather than level-triggered in the Advanced
Programmable Interrupt Controller (APIC). Edge-triggered interrupts are not
intended to be used for sharing an interrupt line between multiple devices;
level-triggered interrupts are the intended trigger for such usage. When
using edge-triggered interrupts, it is common for device drivers using that
interrupt line to stop receiving interrupts. This would appear to the end
user as those devices no longer working, and potentially as a full system
hang. These problems tend to be more common when multiple devices are
sharing that interrupt line.
Q. X starts for me, but OpenGL applications terminate immediately.
A. If X starts but you have trouble with OpenGL, you most likely have a
problem with other libraries in the way, or there are stale symlinks. See
Appendix B for details.
You should also check that the correct extensions are present;
% xdpyinfo
should show the "GLX" and "NV-GLX" extensions present. If these two
extensions are not present, then there is most likely a problem loading the
glx module, or it is unable to implicitly load GLcore. Check your X config
file and make sure that you are loading glx (see Chapter 4). If your X
config file is correct, then check the X log file for warnings/errors
pertaining to GLX. Also check that all of the necessary symlinks are in
place (refer to Appendix B).
Q. When Xinerama is enabled, my stereo glasses are shuttering only when the
stereo application is displayed on one specific X screen. When the
application is displayed on the other X screens, the stereo glasses stop
shuttering.
A. This problem occurs with DDC and "blue line" stereo glasses, that get the
stereo signal from one video port of the graphics card. When a X screen
does not display any stereo drawable the stereo signal is disabled on the
associated video port.
Forcing stereo flipping allows the stereo glasses to shutter continuously.
This can be done by enabling the OpenGL control "Force Stereo Flipping" in
nvidia-settings, or by setting the X configuration option
"ForceStereoFlipping" to "1".
Q. Stereo is not in sync across multiple displays.
A. There are two cases where this may occur. If the displays are attached to
the same GPU, and one of them is out of sync with the stereo glasses, you
will need to reconfigure your monitors to drive identical mode timings; see
Chapter 16 for details.
If the displays are attached to different GPUs, the only way to synchronize
stereo across the displays is with a G-Sync device, which is only supported
by certain Quadro cards. See Chapter 21 for details. This applies to
seperate GPUs on seperate cards as well as seperate GPUs on the same card,
such as Quadro FX 4500 X2. Note that the Quadro FX 4500 X2 only provides a
single DIN connector for stereo, tied to the bottommost GPU. In order to
synchronize onboard stereo on the other GPU you must use a G-Sync device.
Q. X fails to start, and during bootup time I get error messages
nvidia0: NVRM: NVIDIA REG resource alloc failed.
or
nvidia0: NVRM: NVIDIA IRQ resource alloc failed.
A. The system bios has not properly setup your graphics card; FreeBSD can't
currently setup PCI devices that the BIOS leaves unconfigured. Uncheck
"PNP-OS" in your system bios.
Q. X fails to start, and during bootup time I get the following error message:
nvidia0: NVRM: NVIDIA MEM resource alloc failed.
A. On certain FreeBSD kernels, it may be necessary to add the following line
to '/boot/loader.conf':
hw.pci.allow_unsupported_io_range="1"
This should allow the NVIDIA kernel module to attach.
Q. Some OpenGL applications fail to start, and my X log file contains error
messages of the form:
(EE) NVIDIA(0): Failed to obtain a shared memory identifier...
and/or
(EE) NVIDIA(0): Failed to attach to shared memory segment...
A. The NVIDIA driver may require more IPC resources than are allocated by
default. If this happens, you may be able to work around this problem by
increasing your system's resource limits by editing the file
'/boot/loader.conf' and adding:
kern.ipc.shmseg=1024
kern.ipc.shmmni=1024
The values above were chosen conservatively, you may need to tweak them to
meet your requirements.
Q. My X server fails to start, and my X log file contains the error:
(EE) NVIDIA(0): Failed to initialize the NVIDIA kernel module!
A. Nothing will work if the NVIDIA kernel module does not function properly.
If you see anything in the X log file like
(EE) NVIDIA(0): Failed to initialize the NVIDIA kernel module!
then there is most likely a problem with the NVIDIA kernel module.
The NVIDIA kernel module may print error messages indicating a problem --
to view these messages check the output of `dmesg`, '/var/log/messages', or
wherever syslog is directed to place kernel messages. These messages are
prepended with "NVRM".
Q. When I attempt to start `nvidia-settings`, I get an error message of the
form:
Shared object "libgtk-x11-2.0.so.400" not found, required by
nvidia-settings
A. Due to differences between the gtk+-2.x ports packages included with
different FreeBSD 5.x releases, the prebuilt nvidia-settings binary shipped
with the NVIDIA driver may not work with FreeBSD releases more recent than
FreeBSD 5.3.
If you have a recent ports package of gtk+-2.x and gmake installed on your
system, you can build the nvidia-installer utility from source to solve
this problem.
Download nvidia-settings-1.0.tar.gz (or the latest version) from
ftp://download.nvidia.com/XFree86/nvidia-settings You can then extract,
build and install it (to '/usr/local/bin') with:
% gmake install
Q. When I attempt to run `nvidia-xconfig` after the NVIDIA FreeBSD graphics
driver installation, I get an error message of the form:
nvidia-xconfig: Command not found.
A. Depending on the shell you are using, you may need to force it to recompute
its internal table of executable files present in the directories listed in
the '$PATH' variable. Assuming you are using the FreeBSD default shell you
can do so by issuing the command:
% rehash
Q. When I attempt to start a Linux application as 'root', I get the error
message:
NVIDIA: failed to execute '/sbin/modprobe': No such file or directory.
A. When initialized by an application executed with 'root' privileges, the
NVIDIA Linux OpenGL library, shipped with the NVIDIA FreeBSD graphics
driver for Linux ABI compatibility, will attempt to load the NVIDIA Linux
kernel module and fail because /sbin/modprobe is absent. You can work
around this problem by creating a symbolic link from '/usr/bin/true' to
'/compat/linux/sbin/modprobe':
% ln -s /usr/bin/true /compat/linux/sbin/modprobe
Q. My system runs, but seems unstable.
A. Your stability problems may be AGP-related. See Chapter 9 for details.
Q. OpenGL applications are running slowly
A. The application is probably using a different library that still remains on
your system, rather than the NVIDIA supplied OpenGL library. See Appendix B
for details.
Q. There are problems running Quake2.
A. Quake2 requires some minor setup to get it going. First, in the Quake2
directory, the install creates a symlink called 'libGL.so' that points at
'libMesaGL.so'. This symlink should be removed or renamed. Second, in order
to run Quake2 in OpenGL mode, you must type
% quake2 +set vid_ref glx +set gl_driver libGL.so
Quake2 does not seem to support any kind of full-screen mode, but you can
run your X server at the same resolution as Quake2 to emulate full-screen
mode.
Q. I am using either nForce of nForce2 internal graphics, and I see warnings
like this in my X log file:
Not using mode "1600x1200" (exceeds valid memory bandwidth usage)
A. Integrated graphics have more strict memory bandwidth limitations that
limit the resolution and refresh rate of the modes you request. To work
around this, you can reduce the maximum refresh rate by lowering the upper
value of the VertRefresh range in the 'Monitor' section of your X config
file. Though not recommended, you can disable the memory bandwidth test
with the NoBandWidthTest X config file option.
Q. X takes a long time to start (possibly several minutes).
A. Most of the X startup delay problems we have found are caused by incorrect
data in video BIOSes about what display devices are possibly connected or
what i2c port should be used for detection. You can work around these
problems with the X config option IgnoreDisplayDevices (see the description
in Appendix F).
Q. Fonts are incorrectly sized after installing the NVIDIA driver.
A. Incorrectly sized fonts are generally caused by incorrect DPI (Dots Per
Inch) information. You can check what X thinks the physical size of your
monitor is, by running:
% xdpyinfo | grep dimensions
This will report the size in pixels, and in millimeters.
If these numbers are wrong, you can correct them by modifying the X
server's DPI setting. See Appendix I for details.
Q. General problems with ALi chipsets
A. There are some known timing and signal integrity issues on ALi chipsets.
The following tips may help stabilize problematic ALI systems:
o Disable TURBO AGP MODE in the BIOS.
o When using a P5A upgrade to BIOS Revision 1002 BETA 2.
o When using 1007, 1007A or 1009 adjust the IO Recovery Time to 4
cycles.
o AGP is disabled by default on some ALi chipsets (ALi1541, ALi1647) to
work around severe system stability problems with these chipsets. See
the comments for EnableALiAGP in 'nv-reg.h' to force AGP on anyway.
Q. Using GNOME configuration utilities, I am unable to get a resolution above
800x600.
A. The installation of GNOME provided in operating systems such as Red Hat
Enterprise Linux 4 and Solaris 10 Update 2 contain several competing
interfaces for specifying resolution:
'System Settings' -> 'Display'
which will update the X configuration file, and
'Applications' -> 'Preferences' -> 'Screen Resolution'
which will update the per-user screen resolution using the XRandR
extension. Your desktop resolution will be limited to the smaller of the
two settings. Be sure to check the setting of each.
Q. X does not restore the VGA console when run on a TV. I get this error
message in my X log file:
Unable to initialize the X int10 module; the console may not be
restored correctly on your TV.
A. The NVIDIA X driver uses the X Int10 module to save and restore console
state on TV out, and will not be able to restore the console correctly if
it cannot use the Int10 module. If you have built the X server yourself,
please be sure you have built the Int10 module. If you are using a build of
the X server provided by your operating system and are missing the Int10
module, contact your operating system distributor.
Q. OpenGL applications don't work, and my X log file contains the error:
(EE) NVIDIA(0): Unable to map device node /dev/zero with read, write, and
(EE) NVIDIA(0): execute privileges. The GLX extension will be disabled
(EE) NVIDIA(0): on this X screen. Please see the COMMON PROBLEMS
(EE) NVIDIA(0): section in the README for more information.
A. The NVIDIA OpenGL driver must be able to map the '/dev/zero' device node
with read, write, and execute privileges in order to function correctly.
The driver needs this ability to allocate executable memory, which is used
for optimizations that require generating code at run-time. Currently, GLX
cannot run without these optimizations.
Check that your '/dev' filesystem is set up correctly. In particular,
mounting the '/dev' file system with the 'noexec' option will cause this to
happen. If you haven't changed the configuration of your '/dev' filesystem,
please contact your operating system distributor.
______________________________________________________________________________
Chapter 7. Known Issues
______________________________________________________________________________
The following problems still exist in this release and are in the process of
being resolved.
Known Issues
Notebooks
If you are using a notebook see the "Known Notebook Issues" in Chapter 15.
FSAA
When FSAA is enabled (the __GL_FSAA_MODE environment variable is set to a
value that enables FSAA and a multisample visual is chosen), the rendering
may be corrupted when resizing the window.
libGL DSO finalizer and pthreads
When a multithreaded OpenGL application exits, it is possible for libGL's
DSO finalizer (also known as the destructor, or "_fini") to be called
while other threads are executing OpenGL code. The finalizer needs to free
resources allocated by libGL. This can cause problems for threads that are
still using these resources. Setting the environment variable
"__GL_NO_DSO_FINALIZER" to "1" will work around this problem by forcing
libGL's finalizer to leave its resources in place. These resources will
still be reclaimed by the operating system when the process exits. Note
that the finalizer is also executed as part of dlclose(3), so if you have
an application that dlopens(3) and dlcloses(3) libGL repeatedly,
"__GL_NO_DSO_FINALIZER" will cause libGL to leak resources until the
process exits. Using this option can improve stability in some
multithreaded applications, including Java3D applications.
XVideo and the Composite X extension
XVideo will not work correctly when Composite is enabled unless using
X.Org 7.1 or later. See Chapter 18.
This section describes problems that will not be fixed. Usually, the source of
the problem is beyond the control of NVIDIA. Following is the list of
problems:
Problems that Will Not Be Fixed
Gigabyte GA-6BX Motherboard
This motherboard uses a LinFinity regulator on the 3.3 V rail that is only
rated to 5 A -- less than the AGP specification, which requires 6 A. When
diagnostics or applications are running, the temperature of the regulator
rises, causing the voltage to the NVIDIA GPU to drop as low as 2.2 V.
Under these circumstances, the regulator cannot supply the current on the
3.3 V rail that the NVIDIA GPU requires.
This problem does not occur when the graphics card has a switching
regulator or when an external power supply is connected to the 3.3 V rail.
VIA KX133 and 694X Chip sets with AGP 2x
On Athlon motherboards with the VIA KX133 or 694X chip set, such as the
ASUS K7V motherboard, NVIDIA drivers default to AGP 2x mode to work around
insufficient drive strength on one of the signals.
Irongate Chip sets with AGP 1x
AGP 1x transfers are used on Athlon motherboards with the Irongate chipset
to work around a problem with signal integrity.
ALi chipsets, ALi1541 and ALi1647
On ALi1541 and ALi1647 chipsets, NVIDIA drivers disable AGP to work around
timing issues and signal integrity issues. See Chapter 6 for more
information on ALi chipsets.
NV-CONTROL versions 1.8 and 1.9
Version 1.8 of the NV-CONTROL X Extension introduced target types for
setting and querying attributes as well as receiving event notification on
targets. Targets are objects like X Screens, GPUs and G-Sync devices.
Previously, all attributes were described relative to an X Screen. These
new bits of information (target type and target id) were packed in a
non-compatible way in the protocol stream such that addressing X Screen 1
or higher would generate an X protocol error when mixing NV-CONTROL client
and server versions.
This packing problem has been fixed in the NV-CONTROL 1.10 protocol,
making it possible for the older (1.7 and prior) clients to communicate
with NV-CONTROL 1.10 servers. Furthermore, the NV-CONTROL 1.10 client
library has been updated to accommodate the target protocol packing bug
when communicating with a 1.8 or 1.9 NV-CONTROL server. This means that
the NV-CONTROL 1.10 client library should be able to communicate with any
version of the NV-CONTROL server.
NVIDIA recommends that NV-CONTROL client applications relink with version
1.10 or later of the NV-CONTROL client library (libXNVCtrl.a, in the
nvidia-settings-1.0.tar.gz tarball). The version of the client library can
be determined by checking the NV_CONTROL_MAJOR and NV_CONTROL_MINOR
definitions in the accompanying nv_control.h.
The only web released NVIDIA FreeBSD driver that is affected by this
problem (i.e., the only driver to use either version 1.8 or 1.9 of the
NV-CONTROL X extension) is 1.0-8756.
______________________________________________________________________________
Chapter 8. Specifying OpenGL Environment Variable Settings
______________________________________________________________________________
8A. FULL SCENE ANTIALIASING
Antialiasing is a technique used to smooth the edges of objects in a scene to
reduce the jagged "stairstep" effect that sometimes appears. Full-scene
antialiasing is supported on GeForce or newer hardware. By setting the
appropriate environment variable, you can enable full-scene antialiasing in
any OpenGL application on these GPUs.
Several antialiasing methods are available and you can select between them by
setting the __GL_FSAA_MODE environment variable appropriately. Note that
increasing the number of samples taken during FSAA rendering may decrease
performance.
The following tables describe the possible values for __GL_FSAA_MODE and the
effects that they have on various NVIDIA GPUs.
__GL_FSAA_MODE GeForce, GeForce2, Quadro, and Quadro2 Pro
--------------- ------------------------------------------------------
0 FSAA disabled
1 FSAA disabled
2 FSAA disabled
3 1.5 x 1.5 Supersampling
4 2 x 2 Supersampling
5 FSAA disabled
6 FSAA disabled
7 FSAA disabled
__GL_FSAA_MODE GeForce4 MX, GeForce4 4xx Go, Quadro4 380,550,580
XGL, and Quadro4 NVS
--------------- ------------------------------------------------------
0 FSAA disabled
1 2x Bilinear Multisampling
2 2x Quincunx Multisampling
3 FSAA disabled
4 2 x 2 Supersampling
5 FSAA disabled
6 FSAA disabled
7 FSAA disabled
__GL_FSAA_MODE GeForce3, Quadro DCC, GeForce4 Ti, GeForce4 4200 Go,
and Quadro4 700,750,780,900,980 XGL
--------------- ------------------------------------------------------
0 FSAA disabled
1 2x Bilinear Multisampling
2 2x Quincunx Multisampling
3 FSAA disabled
4 4x Bilinear Multisampling
5 4x Gaussian Multisampling
6 2x Bilinear Multisampling by 4x Supersampling
7 FSAA disabled
__GL_FSAA_MODE GeForce FX, GeForce 6xxx, GeForce 7xxx, Quadro FX
--------------- ------------------------------------------------------
0 FSAA disabled
1 2x Bilinear Multisampling
2 2x Quincunx Multisampling
3 FSAA disabled
4 4x Bilinear Multisampling
5 4x Gaussian Multisampling
6 2x Bilinear Multisampling by 4x Supersampling
7 4x Bilinear Multisampling by 4x Supersampling
8 4x Bilinear Multisampling by 2x Supersampling
(available on GeForce FX and later GPUs; not
available on Quadro GPUs)
__GL_FSAA_MODE GeForce 8xxx, G8xGL
--------------- ------------------------------------------------------
0 FSAA disabled
1 2x Bilinear Multisampling
2 FSAA disabled
3 FSAA disabled
4 4x Bilinear Multisampling
5 FSAA disabled
6 FSAA disabled
7 4x Bilinear Multisampling by 4x Supersampling
8 FSAA disabled
9 8x Bilinear Multisampling
10 8x
11 16x
12 16xQ
13 8x Bilinear Multisampling by 4x Supersampling
8B. ANISOTROPIC TEXTURE FILTERING
Automatic anisotropic texture filtering can be enabled by setting the
environment variable __GL_LOG_MAX_ANISO. The possible values are:
__GL_LOG_MAX_ANISO Filtering Type
---------------------------------- ----------------------------------
0 No anisotropic filtering
1 2x anisotropic filtering
2 4x anisotropic filtering
3 8x anisotropic filtering
4 16x anisotropic filtering
4x and greater are only available on GeForce3 or newer GPUs; 16x is only
available on GeForce 6800 or newer GPUs.
8C. VBLANK SYNCING
Setting the environment variable __GL_SYNC_TO_VBLANK to a non-zero value will
force glXSwapBuffers to sync to your monitor's vertical refresh (perform a
swap only during the vertical blanking period).
When using __GL_SYNC_TO_VBLANK with TwinView, OpenGL can only sync to one of
the display devices; this may cause tearing corruption on the display device
to which OpenGL is not syncing. You can use the environment variable
__GL_SYNC_DISPLAY_DEVICE to specify to which display device OpenGL should
sync. You should set this environment variable to the name of a display
device; for example "CRT-1". Look for the line "Connected display device(s):"
in your X log file for a list of the display devices present and their names.
You may also find it useful to review Chapter 10 "Configuring Twinview" and
the section on Ensuring Identical Mode Timings in Chapter 16.
8D. DISABLING CPU-SPECIFIC FEATURES
Setting the environment variable __GL_FORCE_GENERIC_CPU to a non-zero value
will inhibit the use of CPU-specific features such as MMX, SSE, or 3DNOW!. Use
of this option may result in performance loss.
8E. CONTROLLING THE SORTING OF OPENGL FBCONFIGS
The NVIDIA GLX implementation sorts FBConfigs returned by glXChooseFBConfig()
as described in the GLX specification. To disable this behavior set
__GL_SORT_FBCONFIGS to 0 (zero), then FBConfigs will be returned in the order
they were received from the X server. To examine the order in which FBConfigs
are returned by the X server run:
nvidia-settings --glxinfo
This option may be be useful to work around problems in which applications
pick an unexpected FBConfig.
8F. OPENGL YIELD BEHAVIOR
There are several cases where the NVIDIA OpenGL driver needs to wait for
external state to change before continuing. To avoid consuming too much CPU
time in these cases, the driver will sometimes yield so the kernel can
schedule other processes to run while the driver waits. For example, when
waiting for free space in a command buffer, if the free space has not become
available after a certain number of iterations, the driver will yield before
it continues to loop.
By default, the driver calls sched_yield() to do this. However, this can cause
the calling process to be scheduled out for a relatively long period of time
if there are other, same-priority processes competing for time on the CPU. One
example of this is when an OpenGL-based composite manager is moving and
repainting a window and the X server is trying to update the window as it
moves, which are both CPU-intensive operations.
You can use the __GL_YIELD environment variable to work around these
scheduling problems. This variable allows the user to specify what the driver
should do when it wants to yield. The possible values are:
__GL_YIELD Behavior
--------------- ------------------------------------------------------
By default, OpenGL will call sched_yield() to yield.
"NOTHING" OpenGL will never yield.
"USLEEP" OpenGL will call usleep(0) to yield.
8G. CONTROLLING WHICH OPENGL FBCONFIGS ARE AVAILABLE
The NVIDIA GLX implementation will hide FBConfigs that are associated with a
32-bit ARGB visual when the XLIB_SKIP_ARGB_VISUALS environment variable is
defined. This matches the behavior of libX11, which will hide those visuals
from XGetVisualInfo and XMatchVisualInfo. This environment variable is useful
when applications are confused by the presence of these FBConfigs.
______________________________________________________________________________
Chapter 9. Configuring AGP
______________________________________________________________________________
There are several choices for configuring the NVIDIA kernel module's use of
AGP: you can choose to either use the NVIDIA AGP module (NVAGP), or the AGP
module that comes with the FreeBSD kernel (AGPGART). This is controlled
through the "NvAGP" option in your X config file:
Option "NvAgp" "0" ... disables AGP support
Option "NvAgp" "1" ... use NVAGP, if possible
Option "NvAgp" "2" ... use AGPGART, if possible
Option "NvAGP" "3" ... try AGPGART; if that fails, try NVAGP
Unlike other operating systems such as Linux, this option is not the only
controlling factor at this point; because of known problems, 'nvidia.ko' is
built without support for FreeBSD's AGP driver by default. This behavior can
be changed, see 'nv-freebsd.h' for details.
Note that if you built nvidia.ko with support for the FreeBSD driver it will
not load unless 'agp.ko' is loaded. 'agp.ko' is special in that you can not
load it after the system boot is complete, you need to append the following
line to '/boot/loader.conf' to make sure it is pre-loaded:
# -- load FreeBSD AGP GART driver -- #
agp_load="YES"
Also note that if 'agp.ko' is loaded, it could conflict with the NVIDIA AGP
GART driver (NvAGP), resulting in stability problems; for this reason, the
NVIDIA driver will abort NvAGP initialization when it detects 'agp.ko'.
Current FreeBSD releases are shipped with 'agp.ko' built into the kernel; in
order to allow NvAGP to work, the kernel can be rebuilt without 'device agp'
or the following entry added to '/boot/device.hints':
hint.agp.0.disabled="1"
When built with support for the FreeBSD AGP driver, 'nvidia.ko' will fall back
to using NvAGP when it doesn't detect 'agp.ko' (this will be the case when
'agp.ko' does not support your AGP chipset or was explicitely disabled with
device hints).
It is highly recommended that you use the NVIDIA AGP driver.
The following AGP chipsets are supported by the NVIDIA AGP driver; for all
other chipsets it is recommended that you use the AGPGART module.
Supported AGP Chipsets
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Intel 440LX
Intel 440BX
Intel 440GX
Intel 815 ("Solano")
Intel 820 ("Camino")
Intel 830M
Intel 840 ("Carmel")
Intel 845 ("Brookdale")
Intel 845G
Intel 850 ("Tehama")
Intel 855 ("Odem")
Intel 860 ("Colusa")
Intel 865G ("Springdale")
Intel 875P ("Canterwood")
Intel E7205 ("Granite Bay")
Intel E7505 ("Placer")
AMD 751 ("Irongate")
AMD 761 ("IGD4")
AMD 762 ("IGD4 MP")
AMD 8151 ("Lokar")
VIA 8371
VIA 82C694X
VIA KT133
VIA KT266
VIA KT400
VIA P4M266
VIA P4M266A
VIA P4X400
VIA K8T800
VIA K8N800
VIA PT880
VIA KT880
RCC CNB20LE
RCC 6585HE
Micron SAMDDR ("Samurai")
Micron SCIDDR ("Scimitar")
NVIDIA nForce
NVIDIA nForce2
NVIDIA nForce3
ALi 1621
ALi 1631
ALi 1647
ALi 1651
ALi 1671
SiS 630
SiS 633
SiS 635
SiS 645
SiS 646
SiS 648
SiS 648FX
SiS 650
SiS 651
SiS 655
SiS 655FX
SiS 661
SiS 730
SiS 733
SiS 735
SiS 745
SiS 755
ATI RS200M
If you are experiencing AGP stability problems, you should be aware of the
following:
Additional AGP Information
AGP drive strength BIOS setting (Via-based motherboards)
Many Via-based motherboards allow adjusting the AGP drive strength in the
system BIOS. The setting of this option largely affects system stability,
the range between 0xEA and 0xEE seems to work best for NVIDIA hardware.
Setting either nibble to 0xF generally results in severe stability
problems.
If you decide to experiment with this, you need to be aware of the fact
that you are doing so at your own risk and that you may render your system
unbootable with improper settings until you reset the setting to a working
value (w/ a PCI graphics card or by resetting the BIOS to its default
values).
System BIOS version
Make sure you have the latest system BIOS provided by the motherboard
manufacturer.
On ALi1541 and ALi1647 chipsets, NVIDIA drivers disable AGP to work around
timing and signal integrity problems. You can force AGP to be enabled on
these chipsets by setting NVreg_EnableALiAGP to 1. Note that this may
cause the system to become unstable.
Early system BIOS revisions for the ASUS A7V8X-X KT400 motherboard
misconfigure the chipset when an AGP 2.x graphics card is installed; if X
hangs on your ASUS KT400 system with NvAGP enabled and the installed
graphics card is not an AGP 8x device, make sure that you have the latest
system BIOS installed.
______________________________________________________________________________
Chapter 10. Configuring TwinView
______________________________________________________________________________
TwinView is a mode of operation where two display devices (digital flat
panels, CRTs, and TVs) can display the contents of a single X screen in any
arbitrary configuration. This method of multiple monitor use has several
distinct advantages over other techniques (such as Xinerama):
o A single X screen is used. The NVIDIA driver conceals all information
about multiple display devices from the X server; as far as X is
concerned, there is only one screen.
o Both display devices share one frame buffer. Thus, all the functionality
present on a single display (e.g., accelerated OpenGL) is available with
TwinView.
o No additional overhead is needed to emulate having a single desktop.
If you are interested in using each display device as a separate X screen, see
Chapter 12.
10A. X CONFIG TWINVIEW OPTIONS
To enable TwinView, you must specify the following option in the Device
section of your X Config file:
Option "TwinView"
You may also use any of the following options, though they are not required:
Option "MetaModes" ""
Option "SecondMonitorHorizSync" ""
Option "SecondMonitorVertRefresh" ""
Option "HorizSync" ""
Option "VertRefresh" ""
Option "TwinViewOrientation" ""
Option "ConnectedMonitor" ""
See detailed descriptions of each option below.
Alternatively, you can enable TwinView by running
nvidia-xconfig --twinview
and restarting your X server. Or, you can configure TwinView dynamically in
the "Display Configuration" page in nvidia-settings.
10B. DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF OPTIONS
TwinView
This option is required to enable TwinView; without it, all other TwinView
related options are ignored.
SecondMonitorHorizSync
SecondMonitorVertRefresh
You specify the constraints of the second monitor through these options.
The values given should follow the same convention as the "HorizSync" and
"VertRefresh" entries in the Monitor section. As the XF86Config man page
explains it: the ranges may be a comma separated list of distinct values
and/or ranges of values, where a range is given by two distinct values
separated by a dash. The HorizSync is given in kHz, and the VertRefresh is
given in Hz.
These options are normally not needed: by default, the NVIDIA X driver
retrieves the valid frequency ranges from the display device's EDID (see
Appendix F for a description of the "UseEdidFreqs" option). The
SecondMonitor options will override any frequency ranges retrieved from
the EDID.
HorizSync
VertRefresh
Which display device is "first" and which is "second" is often unclear.
For this reason, you may use these options instead of the SecondMonitor
versions. With these options, you can specify a semicolon-separated list
of frequency ranges, each optionally prepended with a display device name.
For example:
Option "HorizSync" "CRT-0: 50-110; DFP-0: 40-70"
Option "VertRefresh" "CRT-0: 60-120; DFP-0: 60"
See Appendix G on Display Device Names for more information.
These options are normally not needed: by default, the NVIDIA X driver
retrieves the valid frequency ranges from the display device's EDID (see
Appendix F for a description of the "UseEdidFreqs" option). The
"HorizSync" and "VertRefresh" options override any frequency ranges
retrieved from the EDID or any frequency ranges specified with the
"SecondMonitorHorizSync" and "SecondMonitorVertRefresh" options.
MetaModes
MetaModes are "containers" that store information about what mode should
be used on each display device at any given time. Even if only one display
device is actively in use, the NVIDIA X driver always uses a MetaMode to
encapsulate the mode information per display device, so that it can
support dynamically enabling TwinView.
Multiple MetaModes list the combinations of modes and the sequence in
which they should be used. When the NVIDIA driver tells X what modes are
available, it is really the minimal bounding box of the MetaMode that is
communicated to X, while the "per display device" mode is kept internal to
the NVIDIA driver. In MetaMode syntax, modes within a MetaMode are comma
separated, and multiple MetaModes are separated by semicolons. For
example:
", ; , "
Where is the name of the mode to be used on display device 0
concurrently with used on display device 1. A mode switch
will then cause to be used on display device 0 and to be used on display device 1. Here is an example MetaMode:
Option "MetaModes" "1280x1024,1280x1024; 1024x768,1024x768"
If you want a display device to not be active for a certain MetaMode, you
can use the mode name "NULL", or simply omit the mode name entirely:
"1600x1200, NULL; NULL, 1024x768"
or
"1600x1200; , 1024x768"
Optionally, mode names can be followed by offset information to control
the positioning of the display devices within the virtual screen space;
e.g.,
"1600x1200 +0+0, 1024x768 +1600+0; ..."
Offset descriptions follow the conventions used in the X "-geometry"
command line option; i.e., both positive and negative offsets are valid,
though negative offsets are only allowed when a virtual screen size is
explicitly given in the X config file.
When no offsets are given for a MetaMode, the offsets will be computed
following the value of the TwinViewOrientation option (see below). Note
that if offsets are given for any one of the modes in a single MetaMode,
then offsets will be expected for all modes within that single MetaMode;
in such a case offsets will be assumed to be +0+0 when not given.
When not explicitly given, the virtual screen size will be computed as the
the bounding box of all MetaMode bounding boxes. MetaModes with a bounding
box larger than an explicitly given virtual screen size will be discarded.
A MetaMode string can be further modified with a "Panning Domain"
specification; e.g.,
"1024x768 @1600x1200, 800x600 @1600x1200"
A panning domain is the area in which a display device's viewport will be
panned to follow the mouse. Panning actually happens on two levels with
TwinView: first, an individual display device's viewport will be panned
within its panning domain, as long as the viewport is contained by the
bounding box of the MetaMode. Once the mouse leaves the bounding box of
the MetaMode, the entire MetaMode (i.e., all display devices) will be
panned to follow the mouse within the virtual screen. Note that individual
display devices' panning domains default to being clamped to the position
of the display devices' viewports, thus the default behavior is just that
viewports remain "locked" together and only perform the second type of
panning.
The most beneficial use of panning domains is probably to eliminate dead
areas -- regions of the virtual screen that are inaccessible due to
display devices with different resolutions. For example:
"1600x1200, 1024x768"
produces an inaccessible region below the 1024x768 display. Specifying a
panning domain for the second display device:
"1600x1200, 1024x768 @1024x1200"
provides access to that dead area by allowing you to pan the 1024x768
viewport up and down in the 1024x1200 panning domain.
Offsets can be used in conjunction with panning domains to position the
panning domains in the virtual screen space (note that the offset
describes the panning domain, and only affects the viewport in that the
viewport must be contained within the panning domain). For example, the
following describes two modes, each with a panning domain width of 1900
pixels, and the second display is positioned below the first:
"1600x1200 @1900x1200 +0+0, 1024x768 @1900x768 +0+1200"
Because it is often unclear which mode within a MetaMode will be used on
each display device, mode descriptions within a MetaMode can be prepended
with a display device name. For example:
"CRT-0: 1600x1200, DFP-0: 1024x768"
If no MetaMode string is specified, then the X driver uses the modes
listed in the relevant "Display" subsection, attempting to place matching
modes on each display device.
TwinViewOrientation
This option controls the positioning of the second display device relative
to the first within the virtual X screen, when offsets are not explicitly
given in the MetaModes. The possible values are:
"RightOf" (the default)
"LeftOf"
"Above"
"Below"
"Clone"
When "Clone" is specified, both display devices will be assigned an offset
of 0,0.
Because it is often unclear which display device is "first" and which is
"second", TwinViewOrientation can be confusing. You can further clarify
the TwinViewOrientation with display device names to indicate which
display device is positioned relative to which display device. For
example:
"CRT-0 LeftOf DFP-0"
ConnectedMonitor
With this option you can override what the NVIDIA kernel module detects is
connected to your graphics card. This may be useful, for example, if any
of your display devices do not support detection using Display Data
Channel (DDC) protocols. Valid values are a comma-separated list of
display device names; for example:
"CRT-0, CRT-1"
"CRT"
"CRT-1, DFP-0"
WARNING: this option overrides what display devices are detected by the
NVIDIA kernel module, and is very seldom needed. You really only need this
if a display device is not detected, either because it does not provide
DDC information, or because it is on the other side of a KVM
(Keyboard-Video-Mouse) switch. In most other cases, it is best not to
specify this option.
Just as in all X config entries, spaces are ignored and all entries are case
insensitive.
10C. DYNAMIC TWINVIEW
Using the NV-CONTROL X extension, the display devices in use by an X screen,
the mode pool for each display device, and the MetaModes for each X screen can
be dynamically manipulated. The "Display Configuration" page in
nvidia-settings uses this functionality to modify the MetaMode list and then
uses XRandR to switch between MetaModes. This gives the ability to dynamically
configure TwinView.
The details of how this works are documented in the nv-control-dpy.c sample
NV-CONTROL client in the nvidia-settings source tarball.
Because the NVIDIA X driver can now transition into and out of TwinView
dynamically, MetaModes are always used internally by the NVIDIA X driver,
regardless of how many display devices are currently in use by the X screen
and regardless of whether the TwinView X configuration option was specified.
One implication of this implementation is that each MetaMode must be uniquely
identifiable to the XRandR X extension. Unfortunately, two MetaModes with the
same bounding box will look the same to XRandR. For example, two MetaModes
with different orientations:
"CRT: 1600x1200 +0+0, DFP: 1600x1200 +1600+0"
"CRT: 1600x1200 +1600+0, DFP: 1600x1200 +0+0"
will look identical to the XRandR or XF86VidMode X extensions, because they
have the same total size (3200x1200), and nvidia-settings would not be able to
use XRandR to switch between these MetaModes. To work around this limitation,
the NVIDIA X driver "lies" about the refresh rate of each MetaMode, using the
refresh rate of the MetaMode as a unique identifier.
The XRandR extension is currently being redesigned by the X.Org community, so
the refresh rate workaround may be removed at some point in the future. This
workaround can also be disabled by setting the "DynamicTwinView" X
configuration option to FALSE, which will disable NV-CONTROL support for
manipulating MetaModes, but will cause the XRandR and XF86VidMode visible
refresh rate to be accurate.
FREQUENTLY ASKED TWINVIEW QUESTIONS
Q. Nothing gets displayed on my second monitor; what is wrong?
A. Monitors that do not support monitor detection using Display Data Channel
(DDC) protocols (this includes most older monitors) are not detectable by
your NVIDIA card. You need to explicitly tell the NVIDIA X driver what you
have connected using the "ConnectedMonitor" option; e.g.,
Option "ConnectedMonitor" "CRT, CRT"
Q. Will window managers be able to appropriately place windows (e.g., avoiding
placing windows across both display devices, or in inaccessible regions of
the virtual desktop)?
A. Yes. The NVIDIA X driver provides a Xinerama extension that X clients (such
as window managers) can use to discover the current TwinView configuration.
Note that the Xinerama protocol provides no way to notify clients when a
configuration change occurs, so if you modeswitch to a different MetaMode,
your window manager will still think you have the previous configuration.
Using the Xinerama extension, in conjunction with the XF86VidMode extension
to get modeswitch events, window managers should be able to determine the
TwinView configuration at any given time.
Unfortunately, the data provided by XineramaQueryScreens() appears to
confuse some window managers; to work around such broken window mangers,
you can disable communication of the TwinView screen layout with the
"NoTwinViewXineramaInfo" X config Option (see Appendix F for details).
The order that display devices are reported in via the TwinView Xinerama
information can be configured with the TwinViewXineramaInfoOrder X
configuration option.
Be aware that the NVIDIA driver cannot provide the Xinerama extension if
the X server's own Xinerama extension is being used. Explicitly specifying
Xinerama in the X config file or on the X server commandline will prohibit
NVIDIA's Xinerama extension from installing, so make sure that the X
server's log file does not contain:
(++) Xinerama: enabled
if you want the NVIDIA driver to be able to provide the Xinerama extension
while in TwinView.
Another solution is to use panning domains to eliminate inaccessible
regions of the virtual screen (see the MetaMode description above).
A third solution is to use two separate X screens, rather than use
TwinView. See Chapter 12.
Q. Why can I not get a resolution of 1600x1200 on the second display device
when using a GeForce2 MX?
A. Because the second display device on the GeForce2 MX was designed to be a
digital flat panel, the Pixel Clock for the second display device is only
150 MHz. This effectively limits the resolution on the second display
device to somewhere around 1280x1024 (for a description of how Pixel Clock
frequencies limit the programmable modes, see the XFree86 Video Timings
HOWTO). This constraint is not present on GeForce4 or GeForce FX GPUs --
the maximum pixel clock is the same on both heads.
Q. Do video overlays work across both display devices?
A. Hardware video overlays only work on the first display device. The current
solution is that blitted video is used instead on TwinView.
Q. How are virtual screen dimensions determined in TwinView?
A. After all requested modes have been validated, and the offsets for each
MetaMode's viewports have been computed, the NVIDIA driver computes the
bounding box of the panning domains for each MetaMode. The maximum bounding
box width and height is then found.
Note that one side effect of this is that the virtual width and virtual
height may come from different MetaModes. Given the following MetaMode
string:
"1600x1200,NULL; 1024x768+0+0, 1024x768+0+768"
the resulting virtual screen size will be 1600 x 1536.
Q. Can I play full screen games across both display devices?
A. Yes. While the details of configuration will vary from game to game, the
basic idea is that a MetaMode presents X with a mode whose resolution is
the bounding box of the viewports for that MetaMode. For example, the
following:
Option "MetaModes" "1024x768,1024x768; 800x600,800x600"
Option "TwinViewOrientation" "RightOf"
produce two modes: one whose resolution is 2048x768, and another whose
resolution is 1600x600. Games such as Quake 3 Arena use the VidMode
extension to discover the resolutions of the modes currently available. To
configure Quake 3 Arena to use the above MetaMode string, add the following
to your q3config.cfg file:
seta r_customaspect "1"
seta r_customheight "600"
seta r_customwidth "1600"
seta r_fullscreen "1"
seta r_mode "-1"
Note that, given the above configuration, there is no mode with a
resolution of 800x600 (remember that the MetaMode "800x600, 800x600" has a
resolution of 1600x600"), so if you change Quake 3 Arena to use a
resolution of 800x600, it will display in the lower left corner of your
screen, with the rest of the screen grayed out. To have single head modes
available as well, an appropriate MetaMode string might be something like:
"800x600,800x600; 1024x768,NULL; 800x600,NULL; 640x480,NULL"
More precise configuration information for specific games is beyond the
scope of this document, but the above examples coupled with numerous online
sources should be enough to point you in the right direction.
______________________________________________________________________________
Chapter 11. Configuring GLX in Xinerama
______________________________________________________________________________
The NVIDIA FreeBSD Driver supports GLX when Xinerama is enabled on similar
GPUs. The Xinerama extension takes multiple physical X screens (possibly
spanning multiple GPUs), and binds them into one logical X screen. This allows
windows to be dragged between GPUs and to span across multiple GPUs. The
NVIDIA driver supports hardware accelerated OpenGL rendering across all NVIDIA
GPUs when Xinerama is enabled.
To configure Xinerama
1. Configure multiple X screens (refer to the XF86Config(5x) or
xorg.conf(5x) manpages for details).
2. Enable Xinerama by adding the line
Option "Xinerama" "True"
to the "ServerFlags" section of your X config file.
Requirements:
o Using identical GPUs is recommended. Some combinations of non-identical,
but similar, GPUs are supported. If a GPU is incompatible with the rest
of a Xinerama desktop then no OpenGL rendering will appear on the screens
driven by that GPU. Rendering will still appear normally on screens
connected to other supported GPUs. In this situation the X log file will
include a message of the form:
(WW) NVIDIA(2): The GPU driving screen 2 is incompatible with the rest of
(WW) NVIDIA(2): the GPUs composing the desktop. OpenGL rendering will
(WW) NVIDIA(2): be disabled on screen 2.
o The NVIDIA X driver must be used for all X screens in the server.
o Only the intersection of capabilities across all GPUs will be advertised.
The maximum OpenGL viewport size depends on the hardware used, and is
described by the following table. If an OpenGL window is larger than the
maximum viewport, regions beyond the viewport will be blank.
OpenGL Viewport Maximums in Xinerama
GeForce GPUs before GeForce 8: 4096 x 4096 pixels
GeForce 8 and newer GPUs: 8192 x 8192 pixels
Quadro: as large as the Xinerama
desktop
o X configuration options that affect GLX operation (e.g.: stereo,
overlays) should be set consistently across all X screens in the X
server.
Known Issues:
o Versions of XFree86 prior to 4.5 and versions of X.Org prior to 6.8.0
lack the required interfaces to properly implement overlays with the
Xinerama extension. On earlier server versions mixing overlays and
Xinerama will result in rendering corruption. If you are using the
Xinerama extension with overlays, it is recommended that you upgrade to
XFree86 4.5, X.Org 6.8.0, or newer.
______________________________________________________________________________
Chapter 12. Configuring Multiple X Screens on One Card
______________________________________________________________________________
GPUs that support TwinView (Chapter 10) can also be configured to treat each
connected display device as a separate X screen.
While there are several disadvantages to this approach as compared to TwinView
(e.g.: windows cannot be dragged between X screens, hardware accelerated
OpenGL cannot span the two X screens), it does offer several advantages over
TwinView:
o If each display device is a separate X screen, then properties that may
vary between X screens may vary between displays (e.g.: depth, root
window size, etc).
o Hardware that can only be used on one display at a time (e.g.: video
overlays, hardware accelerated RGB overlays), and which consequently
cannot be used at all when in TwinView, can be exposed on the first X
screen when each display is a separate X screen.
o TwinView is a fairly new feature. X has historically used one screen per
display device.
To configure two separate X screens to share one graphics card, here is what
you will need to do:
First, create two separate Device sections, each listing the BusID of the
graphics card to be shared and listing the driver as "nvidia", and assign each
a separate screen:
Section "Device"
Identifier "nvidia0"
Driver "nvidia"
# Edit the BusID with the location of your graphics card
BusID "PCI:2:0:0"
Screen 0
EndSection
Section "Device"
Identifier "nvidia1"
Driver "nvidia"
# Edit the BusID with the location of your graphics card
BusId "PCI:2:0:0"
Screen 1
EndSection
Then, create two Screen sections, each using one of the Device sections:
Section "Screen"
Identifier "Screen0"
Device "nvidia0"
Monitor "Monitor0"
DefaultDepth 24
Subsection "Display"
Depth 24
Modes "1600x1200" "1024x768" "800x600" "640x480"
EndSubsection
EndSection
Section "Screen"
Identifier "Screen1"
Device "nvidia1"
Monitor "Monitor1"
DefaultDepth 24
Subsection "Display"
Depth 24
Modes "1600x1200" "1024x768" "800x600" "640x480"
EndSubsection
EndSection
(Note: You'll also need to create a second Monitor section) Finally, update
the ServerLayout section to use and position both Screen sections:
Section "ServerLayout"
...
Screen 0 "Screen0"
Screen 1 "Screen1" leftOf "Screen0"
...
EndSection
For further details, refer to the XF86Config(5x) or xorg.conf(5x) manpages.
______________________________________________________________________________
Chapter 13. Configuring TV-Out
______________________________________________________________________________
NVIDIA GPU-based graphics cards with a TV-Out connector can use a television
as another display device (the same way that it would use a CRT or digital
flat panel). The TV can be used by itself, or in conjunction with another
display device in a TwinView or multiple X screen configuration. If a TV is
the only display device connected to your graphics card, it will be used as
the primary display when you boot your system (i.e. the console will come up
on the TV just as if it were a CRT).
The NVIDIA X driver populates the mode pool for the TV with all the mode sizes
that the driver supports with the given TV standard and the TV encoder on the
graphics card. These modes are given names that correspond to their
resolution; e.g., "800x600".
Because these TV modes only depend on the TV encoder and the TV standard, TV
modes do not go through normal mode validation. The X configuration options
HorizSync and VertRefresh are not used for TV mode validation.
Additionally, the NVIDIA driver contains a hardcoded list of mode sizes that
it can drive for each combination of TV encoder and TV standard. Therefore,
custom modelines in your X configuration file are ignored for TVs.
To use your TV with X, there are several relevant X configuration options:
o The Modes in the screen section of your X configuration file; you can use
these to request any of the modes in the mode pool which the X driver
created for this combination of TV standard and TV encoder. Examples
include "640x480" and "800x600". If in doubt, use "nvidia-auto-select".
o The "TVStandard" option should be added to your screen section; valid
values are:
TVStandard Description
------------- --------------------------------------------------
"PAL-B" used in Belgium, Denmark, Finland, Germany,
Guinea, Hong Kong, India, Indonesia, Italy,
Malaysia, The Netherlands, Norway, Portugal,
Singapore, Spain, Sweden, and Switzerland
"PAL-D" used in China and North Korea
"PAL-G" used in Denmark, Finland, Germany, Italy,
Malaysia, The Netherlands, Norway, Portugal,
Spain, Sweden, and Switzerland
"PAL-H" used in Belgium
"PAL-I" used in Hong Kong and The United Kingdom
"PAL-K1" used in Guinea
"PAL-M" used in Brazil
"PAL-N" used in France, Paraguay, and Uruguay
"PAL-NC" used in Argentina
"NTSC-J" used in Japan
"NTSC-M" used in Canada, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica,
Ecuador, Haiti, Honduras, Mexico, Panama, Puerto
Rico, South Korea, Taiwan, United States of
America, and Venezuela
"HD480i" 480 line interlaced
"HD480p" 480 line progressive
"HD720p" 720 line progressive
"HD1080i" 1080 line interlaced
"HD1080p" 1080 line progressive
"HD576i" 576 line interlace
"HD576p" 576 line progressive
The line in your X config file should be something like:
Option "TVStandard" "NTSC-M"
If you do not specify a TVStandard, or you specify an invalid value, the
default "NTSC-M" will be used. Note: if your country is not in the above
list, select the country closest to your location.
o The "UseDisplayDevice" option can be used if there are multiple display
devices connected, and you want the connected TV to be used instead of
the connected CRTs and/or DFPs. E.g.,
Option "UseDisplayDevice" "TV"
Using the "UseDisplayDevice" option, rather than the "ConnectedMonitor"
option, is recommended.
o The "TVOutFormat" option can be used to force the output format. Without
this option, the driver autodetects the output format. Unfortunately, it
does not always do this correctly. The output format can be forced with
the "TVOutFormat" option; valid values are:
TVOutFormat Description Supported TV
standards
------------------- ------------------- -------------------
"AUTOSELECT" The driver PAL, NTSC, HD
autodetects the
output format
(default value).
"COMPOSITE" Force Composite PAL, NTSC
output format
"SVIDEO" Force S-Video PAL, NTSC
output format
"COMPONENT" Force Component HD
output format, also
called YPrPp
"SCART" Force Scart output PAL, NTSC
format, also called
Peritel
The line in your X config file should be something like:
Option "TVOutFormat" "SVIDEO"
o The "TVOverScan" option can be used to enable Overscan, when the TV
encoder supports it. Valid values are decimal values in the range 1.0
(which means overscan as much as possible: make the image as large as
possible) and 0.0 (which means disable overscanning: make the image as
small as possible). Overscanning is disabled (0.0) by default.
The NVIDIA X driver may not restore the console correctly with XFree86
versions older than 4.3 when the console is a TV. This is due to binary
incompatibilities between XFree86 int10 modules. If you use a TV as your
console it is recommended that you upgrade to XFree86 4.3 or later.
______________________________________________________________________________
Chapter 14. Using the XRandR Extension
______________________________________________________________________________
X.Org version X11R6.8.1 contains support for the rotation component of the
XRandR extension, which allows screens to be rotated at 90 degree increments.
The driver supports rotation with the extension when 'Option "RandRRotation"'
is enabled in the X config file.
Workstation RGB or CI overlay visuals will function at lower performance and
the video overlay will not be available when RandRRotation is enabled.
You can query the available rotations using the 'xrandr' command line
interface to the RandR extension by running:
xrandr -q
You can set the rotation orientation of the screen by running any of:
xrandr -o left
xrandr -o right
xrandr -o inverted
xrandr -o normal
Rotation may also be set through the nvidia-settings configuration utility in
the "Rotation Settings" panel.
SLI and rotation are incompatible. Rotation will be disabled when SLI is
enabled.
TwinView and rotation can be used together, but rotation affects the entire
desktop. This means that the same rotation setting will apply to both display
devices in a TwinView pair. Note also that the "TwinViewOrientation" option
applies before rotation does. For example, if you have two screens
side-by-side and you want to rotate them, you should set "TwinViewOrientation"
to "Above" or "Below".
______________________________________________________________________________
Chapter 15. Configuring a Notebook
______________________________________________________________________________
15A. INSTALLATION AND CONFIGURATION
Installation and configuration of the NVIDIA FreeBSD Driver Set on a notebook
is the same as for any desktop environment, with a few additions, as described
below.
15B. POWER MANAGEMENT
All notebook NVIDIA GPUs support power management, both S3 (also known as
"Standby" or "Suspend to RAM") and S4 (also known as "Hibernate", "Suspend to
Disk" or "SWSUSP"). Power management is system-specific and is dependent upon
all the components in the system; some systems may be more problematic than
other systems.
Most recent notebook NVIDIA GPUs also support PowerMizer, which monitors
application work load to adjust system parameters to deliver the optimal
balance of performance and battery life. However, PowerMizer is only enabled
by default on some notebooks. Please see the known issues below for more
details.
15C. HOTKEY SWITCHING OF DISPLAY DEVICES
Mobile NVIDIA GPUs also have the capacity to react to a display change hotkey
event, toggling between each of the connected display devices and each
possible combination of the connected display devices (note that only 2
display devices may be active at a time).
Hotkey switching dynamically changes the TwinView configuration; a given
hotkey event will indicate which display devices should be in use at that
time, and all MetaModes currently configured on the X screen will be updated
to use the new configuration of display devices.
Another important aspect of hotkey functionality is that you can dynamically
connect and remove display devices to/from your notebook and use the hotkey to
activate and deactivate them without restarting X.
Note that there are two approaches to implementing this hotkey support: ACPI
events and polling.
Most recent notebooks use ACPI events to deliver hotkeys from the System BIOS
to the graphics driver. This is the preferred method of delivering hotkey
events, but is still a new feature under most UNIX platforms and may not
always function correctly.
The polling mechanism requires checking during the vertical blanking interval
for a hotkey status change. It is an older mechanism for handling hotkeys, and
is therefore not supported on all notebooks and is not tested by notebook
manufacturers. It also does not always report the same combinations of display
devices that are reported by ACPI hotkey events.
The NVIDIA FreeBSD Driver will attempt to use ACPI hotkey events, if possible.
In the case that ACPI hotkey event support is not available, the driver will
revert back to trying hotkey polling. In the case that the notebook does not
support hotkey polling, hotkeys will not work. Please see the known issues
section below for more details.
When switching away from X to a virtual terminal, the VGA console will always
be restored to the display device on which it was present when X was started.
Similarly, when switching back into X, the same display device configuration
will be used as when you switched away, regardless of what display change
hotkey activity occurred while the virtual terminal was active.
15D. DOCKING EVENTS
All notebook NVIDIA GPUs support docking, however support may be limited by
the OS or system. There are three types of notebook docking (hot, warm, and
cold), which refer to the state of the system when the docking event occurs.
hot refers to a powered on system with a live desktop, warm refers to a system
that has entered a suspended power management state, and cold refers to a
system that has been powered off. Only warm and cold docking are supported by
the NVIDIA driver.
15E. TWINVIEW
All notebook NVIDIA GPUs support TwinView. TwinView on a notebook can be
configured in the same way as on a desktop computer (refer to Chapter 10 );
note that in a TwinView configuration using the notebook's internal flat panel
and an external CRT, the CRT is the primary display device (specify its
HorizSync and VertRefresh in the Monitor section of your X config file) and
the flat panel is the secondary display device (specify its HorizSync and
VertRefresh through the SecondMonitorHorizSync and SecondMonitorVertRefresh
options).
The "UseEdidFreqs" X config option is enabled by default, so normally you
should not need to specify the "SecondMonitorHorizSync" and
"SecondMonitorVertRefresh" options. See the description of the UseEdidFreqs
option in Appendix F for details).
15F. KNOWN NOTEBOOK ISSUES
There are a few known issues associated with notebooks:
o Display change hotkey switching is not available on all notebooks. In
some cases, the ACPI infrastructure is not fully supported by the NVIDIA
FreeBSD Driver. Work is ongoing to increase the robustness of NVIDIA's
support in this area. Toshiba and Lenovo notebooks are known to be
problematic.
o ACPI Display change hotkey switching is not supported by X.Org X servers
earlier than 1.2.0; see EnableACPIHotkeys in Appendix F for details.
o In many cases, suspending and/or resuming will fail. As mentioned above,
this functionality is very system-specific. There are still many cases
that are problematic. Here are some tips that may help:
o In some cases, hibernation can have bad interactions with the PCI
Express bus clocks, which can lead to system hangs when entering
hibernation. This issue is still being investigated, but a known
workaround is to leave an OpenGL application running when
hibernating.
o On some notebooks, PowerMizer is not enabled by default. This issue is
being investigated, and there is no known workaround.
o ACPI is not currently supported on FreeBSD As a result, ACPI hotkey
events are not supported.
o The video overlay only works on the first display device on which you
started X. For example, if you start X on the internal LCD, run a video
application that uses the video overlay (uses the "Video Overlay" adapter
advertised through the XV extension), and then hotkey switch to add a
second display device, the video will not appear on the second display
device. To work around this, you can either configure the video
application to use the "Video Blitter" adapter advertised through the XV
extension (this is always available), or hotkey switch to the display
device on which you want to use the video overlay *before* starting X.
______________________________________________________________________________
Chapter 16. Programming Modes
______________________________________________________________________________
The NVIDIA Accelerated FreeBSD Graphics Driver supports all standard VGA and
VESA modes, as well as most user-written custom mode lines; double-scan modes
are supported on all hardware. Interlaced modes are supported on all GeForce
FX/Quadro FX and newer GPUs, and certain older GPUs; the X log file will
contain a message "Interlaced video modes are supported on this GPU" if
interlaced modes are supported.
To request one or more standard modes for use in X, you can simply add a
"Modes" line such as:
Modes "1600x1200" "1024x768" "640x480"
in the appropriate Display subsection of your X config file (see the
XF86Config(5x) or xorg.conf(5x) man pages for details). Or, the
nvidia-xconfig(1) utility can be used to request additional modes; for
example:
nvidia-xconfig --mode 1600x1200
See the nvidia-xconfig(1) man page for details.
16A. DEPTH, BITS PER PIXEL, AND PITCH
While not directly a concern when programming modes, the bits used per pixel
is an issue when considering the maximum programmable resolution; for this
reason, it is worthwhile to address the confusion surrounding the terms
"depth" and "bits per pixel". Depth is how many bits of data are stored per
pixel. Supported depths are 8, 15, 16, and 24. Most video hardware, however,
stores pixel data in sizes of 8, 16, or 32 bits; this is the amount of memory
allocated per pixel. When you specify your depth, X selects the bits per pixel
(bpp) size in which to store the data. Below is a table of what bpp is used
for each possible depth:
Depth BPP
---------------------------------- ----------------------------------
8 8
15 16
16 16
24 32
Lastly, the "pitch" is how many bytes in the linear frame buffer there are
between one pixel's data, and the data of the pixel immediately below. You can
think of this as the horizontal resolution multiplied by the bytes per pixel
(bits per pixel divided by 8). In practice, the pitch may be more than this
product due to alignment constraints.
16B. MAXIMUM RESOLUTIONS
The NVIDIA Accelerated FreeBSD Graphics Driver and NVIDIA GPU-based graphics
cards support resolutions up to 8192x8192 pixels for the GeForce 8 series and
above, and up to 4096x4096 pixels for the GeForce 7 series and below, though
the maximum resolution your system can support is also limited by the amount
of video memory (see USEFUL FORMULAS for details) and the maximum supported
resolution of your display device (monitor/flat panel/television). Also note
that while use of a video overlay does not limit the maximum resolution or
refresh rate, video memory bandwidth used by a programmed mode does affect the
overlay quality.
16C. USEFUL FORMULAS
The maximum resolution is a function both of the amount of video memory and
the bits per pixel you elect to use:
HR * VR * (bpp/8) = Video Memory Used
In other words, the amount of video memory used is equal to the horizontal
resolution (HR) multiplied by the vertical resolution (VR) multiplied by the
bytes per pixel (bits per pixel divided by eight). Technically, the video
memory used is actually the pitch times the vertical resolution, and the pitch
may be slightly greater than (HR * (bpp/8)) to accommodate the hardware
requirement that the pitch be a multiple of some value.
Note that this is just memory usage for the frame buffer; video memory is also
used by other things, such as OpenGL and pixmap caching.
Another important relationship is that between the resolution, the pixel clock
(aka dot clock) and the vertical refresh rate:
RR = PCLK / (HFL * VFL)
In other words, the refresh rate (RR) is equal to the pixel clock (PCLK)
divided by the total number of pixels: the horizontal frame length (HFL)
multiplied by the vertical frame length (VFL) (note that these are the frame
lengths, and not just the visible resolutions). As described in the XFree86
Video Timings HOWTO, the above formula can be rewritten as:
PCLK = RR * HFL * VFL
Given a maximum pixel clock, you can adjust the RR, HFL and VFL as desired, as
long as the product of the three is consistent. The pixel clock is reported in
the log file. Your X log should contain a line like this:
(--) NVIDIA(0): ViewSonic VPD150 (DFP-1): 165 MHz maximum pixel clock
which indicates the maximum pixel clock for that display device.
16D. HOW MODES ARE VALIDATED
In traditional XFree86/X.Org mode validation, the X server takes as a starting
point the X server's internal list of VESA standard modes, plus any modes
specified with special ModeLines in the X configuration file's Monitor
section. These modes are validated against criteria such as the valid
HorizSync/VertRefresh frequency ranges for the user's monitor (as specified in
the Monitor section of the X configuration file), as well as the maximum pixel
clock of the GPU.
Once the X server has determined the set of valid modes, it takes the list of
user requested modes (i.e., the set of modes named in the "Modes" line in the
Display subsection of the Screen section of X configuration file), and finds
the "best" validated mode with the requested name.
The NVIDIA X driver uses a variation on the above approach to perform mode
validation. During X server initialization, the NVIDIA X driver builds a pool
of valid modes for each display device. It gathers all possible modes from
several sources:
o The display device's EDID
o The X server's built-in list
o Any user-specified ModeLines in the X configuration file
o The VESA standard modes
For every possible mode, the mode is run through mode validation. The core of
mode validation is still performed similarly to traditional XFree86/X.Org mode
validation: the mode timings are checked against things such as the valid
HorizSync and VertRefresh ranges and the maximum pixelclock. Note that each
individual stage of mode validation can be independently controlled through
the "ModeValidation" X configuration option.
Note that when validating interlaced mode timings, VertRefresh specifies the
field rate, rather than the frame rate. For example, the following modeline
has a vertical refresh rate of 87 Hz:
# 1024x768i @ 87Hz (industry standard)
ModeLine "1024x768" 44.9 1024 1032 1208 1264 768 768 776 817 +hsync +vsync
Interlace
Invalid modes are discarded; valid modes are inserted into the mode pool. See
MODE VALIDATION REPORTING for how to get more details on mode validation
results for each considered mode.
Valid modes are given a unique name that is guaranteed to be unique across the
whole mode pool for this display device. This mode name is constructed
approximately like this:
x_
(e.g., "1600x1200_85")
The name may also be prepended with another number to ensure the mode is
unique; e.g., "1600x1200_85_0".
As validated modes are inserted into the mode pool, duplicate modes are
removed, and the mode pool is sorted, such that the "best" modes are at the
beginning of the mode pool. The sorting is based roughly on:
o Resolution
o Source (EDID-provided modes are prioritized higher than VESA-provided
modes, which are prioritized higher than modes that were in the X
server's built-in list)
o Refresh rate
Once modes from all mode sources are validated and the mode pool is
constructed, all modes with the same resolution are compared; the best mode
with that resolution is added to the mode pool a second time, using just the
resolution as its unique modename (e.g., "1600x1200"). In this way, when you
request a mode using the traditional names (e.g., "1600x1200"), you still get
what you got before (the 'best' 1600x1200 mode); the added benefit is that all
modes in the mode pool can be addressed by a unique name.
When verbose logging is enabled (see the FAQ section on increasing the amount
of data printed in the X log file), the mode pool for each display device is
printed to the X log file.
After the mode pool is built for all display devices, the requested modes (as
specified in the X configuration file), are looked up from the mode pool. Each
requested mode that can be matched against a mode in the mode pool is then
advertised to the X server and is available to the user through the X server's
mode switching hotkeys (ctrl-alt-plus/minus) and the XRandR and XF86VidMode X
extensions.
If only one display device is in use by the X screen when the X server starts,
all modes in the mode pool are implicitly made available to the X server. See
the "IncludeImplicitMetaModes" X configuration option in Appendix F for
details.
16E. THE NVIDIA-AUTO-SELECT MODE
You can request a special mode by name in the X config file, named
"nvidia-auto-select". When the X driver builds the mode pool for a display
device, it selects one of the modes as the "nvidia-auto-select" mode; a new
entry is made in the mode pool, and "nvidia-auto-select" is used as the unique
name for the mode.
The "nvidia-auto-select" mode is intended to be a reasonable mode for the
display device in question. For example, the "nvidia-auto-select" mode is
normally the native resolution for flatpanels, as reported by the flatpanel's
EDID, or one of the detailed timings from the EDID. The "nvidia-auto-select"
mode is guaranteed to always be present, and to always be defined as something
considered valid by the X driver for this display device.
Note that the "nvidia-auto-select" mode is not necessarily the largest
possible resolution, nor is it necessarily the mode with the highest refresh
rate. Rather, the "nvidia-auto-select" mode is selected such that it is a
reasonable default. The selection process is roughly:
o If the EDID for the display device reported a preferred mode timing, and
that mode timing is considered a valid mode, then that mode is used as
the "nvidia-auto-select" mode. You can check if the EDID reported a
preferred timing by starting X with logverbosity greater than or equal to
5 (see the FAQ section on increasing the amount of data printed in the X
log file), and looking at the EDID printout; if the EDID contains a line:
Prefer first detailed timing : Yes
Then the first mode listed under the "Detailed Timings" in the EDID will
be used.
o If the EDID did not provide a preferred timing, the best detailed timing
from the EDID is used as the "nvidia-auto-select" mode.
o If the EDID did not provide any detailed timings (or there was no EDID at
all), the best valid mode not larger than 1024x768 is used as the
"nvidia-auto-select" mode. The 1024x768 limit is imposed here to restrict
use of modes that may have been validated, but may be too large to be
considered a reasonable default, such as 2048x1536.
o If all else fails, the X driver will use a built-in 800 x 600 60Hz mode
as the "nvidia-auto-select" mode.
If no modes are requested in the X configuration file, or none of the
requested modes can be found in the mode pool, then the X driver falls back to
the "nvidia-auto-select" mode, so that X can always start. Appropriate warning
messages will be printed to the X log file in these fallback scenarios.
You can add the "nvidia-auto-select" mode to your X configuration file by
running the command
nvidia-xconfig --mode nvidia-auto-select
and restarting your X server.
The X driver can generally do a much better job of selecting the
"nvidia-auto-select" mode if the display device's EDID is available. This is
one reason why the "IgnoreEDID" X configuration option has been deprecated,
and that it is recommended to only use the "UseEDID" X configuration option
sparingly. Note that, rather than globally disable all uses of the EDID with
the "UseEDID" option, you can individually disable each particular use of the
EDID using the "UseEDIDFreqs", "UseEDIDDpi", and/or the "NoEDIDModes" argument
in the "ModeValidation" X configuration option.
16F. MODE VALIDATION REPORTING
When log verbosity is set to 6 or higher (see FAQ
section on increasing the amount of data printed in the X log file), the X log
will record every mode that is considered for each display device's mode pool,
and report whether the mode passed or failed. For modes that were considered
invalid, the log will report why the mode was considered invalid.
16G. ENSURING IDENTICAL MODE TIMINGS
Some functionality, such as Active Stereo with TwinView, requires control over
exactly which mode timings are used. For explicit control over which mode
timings are used on each display device, you can specify the ModeLine you want
to use (using one of the ModeLine generators available), and using a unique
name. For example, if you wanted to use 1024x768 at 120 Hz on each monitor in
TwinView with active stereo, you might add something like this to the monitor
section of your X configuration file:
# 1024x768 @ 120.00 Hz (GTF) hsync: 98.76 kHz; pclk: 139.05 MHz
Modeline "1024x768_120" 139.05 1024 1104 1216 1408 768 769 772 823
-HSync +Vsync
Then, in the Screen section of your X config file, specify a MetaMode like
this:
Option "MetaModes" "1024x768_120, 1024x768_120"
16H. ADDITIONAL INFORMATION
An XFree86 ModeLine generator, conforming to the GTF Standard is available at
http://gtf.sourceforge.net/. Additional generators can be found by searching
for "modeline" on freshmeat.net.
______________________________________________________________________________
Chapter 17. Configuring Flipping and UBB
______________________________________________________________________________
The NVIDIA Accelerated FreeBSD Graphics Driver supports Unified Back Buffer
(UBB) and OpenGL Flipping. These features can provide performance gains in
certain situations.
o Unified Back Buffer (UBB): UBB is available only on the Quadro family of
GPUs (Quadro4 NVS excluded) and is enabled by default when there is
sufficient video memory available. This can be disabled with the UBB X
config option described in Appendix F. When UBB is enabled, all windows
share the same back, stencil and depth buffers. When there are many
windows, the back, stencil and depth usage will never exceed the size of
that used by a full screen window. However, even for a single small
window, the back, stencil, and depth video memory usage is that of a full
screen window. In that case video memory may be used less efficiently
than in the non-UBB case.
o Flipping: When OpenGL flipping is enabled, OpenGL can perform buffer
swaps by changing which buffer the DAC scans out rather than copying the
back buffer contents to the front buffer; this is generally a much higher
performance mechanism and allows tearless swapping during the vertical
retrace (when __GL_SYNC_TO_VBLANK is set). The conditions under which
OpenGL can flip are slightly complicated, but in general: on GeForce or
newer hardware, OpenGL can flip when a single full screen unobscured
OpenGL application is running, and __GL_SYNC_TO_VBLANK is enabled.
Additionally, OpenGL can flip on Quadro hardware even when an OpenGL
window is partially obscured or not full screen or __GL_SYNC_TO_VBLANK is
not enabled.
______________________________________________________________________________
Appendix C. The Sysctl Interface
______________________________________________________________________________
The sysctl interface allows you to obtain run-time information about the
driver, any installed NVIDIA graphics cards and the AGP status. It also allows
you to control low-level configuration options and/or overrides.
The various pieces of information are held in a hierarchy under hw.nvidia and
are accessible with the sysctl(8) command.
NVIDIA sysctl Entries
hw.nvidia.version
Prints the installed driver revision
hw.nvidia.cards.n.*
These OIDs provide information about NVIDIA device 'n':
ID Description
-------------------------------- --------------------------------
model the device's product name
irq the IRQ claimed by this device
vbios the device's VBIOS revision
type the bus type of this device
hw.nvidia.agp.host-bridge.*
hw.nvidia.agp.card.*
These OIDs provide information about the AGP capabilities of the installed
AGP graphics card and host-bridge respectively. These values are most
likely to be correct after system boot and before the X server is started
(and the AGP subsystem intialized).
ID Description
-------------- ---------------------------------------------------
rates the AGP rates supported by this device
fw if the device suppoprts AGP fast-writes
sba if the device supports AGP side-band-addressing
registers the device's AGP registers, status:command
hw.nvidia.agp.status.*
Prints AGP status information based on the AGP command registers of the
host-bridge and of the AGP card.
ID Description
-------------- ---------------------------------------------------
status if AGP is enabled or disabled
driver which driver is being used
rate the programmed AGP rate
fw if fast-writes are enabled or disabled
sba if side-band-addressing is enabled or disabled
hw.nvidia.registry.*
Low-level kernel module configuration options. Changing these is typically
not necessary and potentially dangerous. If you do need to change any of
these options, you will need to do so BEFORE you start the X server.
ID Description
-------------- ---------------------------------------------------
status if AGP is enabled or disabled
driver which driver is being used
rate the programmed AGP rate
fw if fast-writes are enabled or disabled
sba if side-band-addressing is enabled or disabled
______________________________________________________________________________
Appendix D. Configuring Low-level Parameters
______________________________________________________________________________
The NVIDIA resource manager recognizes several low-level configuration
parameters that can be set using the sysctl driver interface BEFORE the X
server is started. Normally you should not need to modify any of these
parameters, but it is sometimes necessary or desirable to do so.
To view the current settings of these parameters, you need to issue this
sysctl command ('nvidia.ko' needs to be loaded):
% sysctl -a hw.nvidia.registry
To change any of the parameters, you need to pass the complete name of the OID
followed by '=' and the new value, e.g.:
% sysctl hw.nvidia.registry.EnableVia4x=1
It is possible to automate setting these paramaters by adding them to the
'/etc/sysctl.conf' file. See `man 5 sysctl.conf` for details.
The following parameters are recognized by 'nvidia.ko':
Resource Manager Parameters
VideoMemoryTypeOverride
We normally detect memory type on TNT cards by scanning the embedded BIOS.
Unfortunately, we've seen some cases where a TNT card has been flashed
with the wrong bios. For example, an SDRAM based TNT has been flashed with
an SGRAM bios, and therefore claims to be an SGRAM TNT. We've therefore
provided an override here. Make sure to set the value toe the type of
memory used on your card.
Value Meaning
-------------------------------- --------------------------------
1 SDRAM
2 SGRAM
Note that we can only do so much here. There are border cases where even
this fails. For example, if 2 TNT cards are in the same system, one SGRAM,
one SDRAM.
This option is disabled by default, see below for information on how to
enable it.
EnableVia4x
We've had problems with some Via chipsets in 4x mode, we need force them
back down to 2x mode. If you'd like to experiment with retaining 4x mode,
you may try setting this value to 1 If that hangs the system, you're stuck
with 2x mode; there's nothing we can do about it.
Value Meaning
-------------- ---------------------------------------------------
0 disable AGP 4x on Via chipsets (default)
1 enable AGP 4x on Via chipsets
EnableALiAGP
Some ALi chipsets (ALi1541, ALi1647) are known to cause severe system
stability problems with AGP enabled. To avoid lockups, we disable AGP on
systems with these chipsets by default. It appears that updating the
system BIOS and using recent versions of the kernel AGP Gart driver can
make such systems much more stable. If you own a system with one of the
aforementioned chipsets and had it working reasonably well previously, or
if you want to experiment with BIOS and AGPGART revisions, you can
re-enable AGP support by setting this option to 1.
Value Meaning
-------------- ---------------------------------------------------
0 disable AGP on Ali1541 and ALi1647 (default)
1 enable AGP on Ali1541 and ALi1647
NvAGP
This options controls which AGP GART driver is used when no explicit
request is made to change the default (X server).
Value Meaning
-------------- ---------------------------------------------------
0 disable AGP support
1 use the NVIDIA builtin driver (if possible)
2 use the kernel's AGPGART driver (if possible)
3 use any available driver (try 2, then 1)
Note that the NVIDIA internal AGP GART driver will not be used if AGPGART
was either statically linked into your kernel or built as a kernel module
and loaded before the NVIDIA kernel module.
ReqAGPRate
Normally, the driver will compare speed modes of the chipset and the card,
picking the highest common rate. This key forces a maximum limit, to limit
the driver to lower speeds. The driver will not attempt a speed beyond
what the chipset and card claim they are capable of.
Make sure you really know what you're doing before you enable this
override. By default, AGP drivers will enable the fastest AGP rate your
card and motherboard chipset are capable of. Then, in some cases, our
driver will force this rate down to work around bugs in both our chipsets,
and motherboard chipsets. Using this variable will override our bug fixes.
This may be desirable in some cases, but not most. THIS IS COMPLETELY
UNSUPPORTED!
This option expects a bitmask (7 = 1|2|3|4, 3=1|2, etc.)
This option is disabled by default, see below for information on how to
enable it.
EnableAGPSBA
For stability reasons, the driver will not Side Band Addressing even if
both the host chipset and the AGP card support it. You may override this
behaviour with the following registry key. THIS IS COMPLETELY UNSUPPORTED!
Value Meaning
-------------- ---------------------------------------------------
0 disable Side Band Addressing (default on x86, see
below)
1 enable Side Band Addressing (if supported)
EnableAGPFW
Similar to Side Band Addressing, Fast Writes are disabled by default. If
you wish to enable them on systems that support them, you can do so with
this registry key. Note that this may render your system unstable with
many AGP chipsets. THIS IS COMPLETELY UNSUPPORTED!
Value Meaning
-------------------------------- --------------------------------
0 disable Fast Writes (default)
1 enable Fast Writes
______________________________________________________________________________
Chapter 18. Using the X Composite Extension
______________________________________________________________________________
X.Org X servers, beginning with X11R6.8.0, contain experimental support for a
new X protocol extension called Composite. This extension allows windows to be
drawn into pixmaps instead of directly onto the screen. In conjunction with
the Damage and Render extensions, this allows a program called a composite
manager to blend windows together to draw the screen.
Performance will be degraded significantly if the "RenderAccel" option is
disabled in xorg.conf. See Appendix F for more details.
When the NVIDIA X driver is used with an X.Org X server X11R6.9.0 or newer and
the Composite extension is enabled, NVIDIA's OpenGL implementation interacts
properly with the Damage and Composite X extensions. This means that OpenGL
rendering is drawn into offscreen pixmaps and the X server is notified of the
Damage event when OpenGL renders to the pixmap. This allows OpenGL
applications to behave properly in a composited X desktop.
If the Composite extension is enabled on an X server older than X11R6.9.0,
then GLX will be disabled. You can force GLX on while Composite is enabled on
pre-X11R6.9.0 X servers with the "AllowGLXWithComposite" X configuration
option. However, GLX will not render correctly in this environment. Upgrading
your X server to X11R6.9.0 or newer is recommended.
You can enable the Composite X extension by running 'nvidia-xconfig
--composite'. Composite can be disabled with 'nvidia-xconfig --no-composite'.
See the nvidia-xconfig(1) man page for details.
If you are using Composite with GLX, it is recommended that you also enable
the "DamageEvents" X option for enhanced performance. If you are using an
OpenGL-based composite manager, you may also need the "DisableGLXRootClipping"
option to obtain proper output.
The Composite extension also causes problems with other driver components:
o In X servers prior to X.Org 7.1, Xv cannot draw into pixmaps that have
been redirected offscreen and will draw directly onto the screen instead.
For some programs you can work around this issue by using an alternative
video driver. For example, "mplayer -vo x11" will work correctly, as will
"xine -V xshm". If you must use Xv with an older server, you can also
disable the compositing manager and re-enable it when you are finished.
On X.Org 7.1 and higher, the driver will properly redirect video into
offscreen pixmaps. Note that the Xv adaptors will ignore the
sync-to-vblank option when drawing into a redirected window.
o Workstation overlays, stereo visuals, and the unified back buffer (UBB)
are incompatible with Composite. These features will be automatically
disabled when Composite is detected.
This NVIDIA FreeBSD supports OpenGL rendering to 32-bit ARGB windows on X.Org
7.2 and higher or when the "AddARGBGLXVisuals" X config file option is
enabled. If you are an application developer, you can use these new visuals in
conjunction with a composite manager to create translucent OpenGL
applications:
int attrib[] = {
GLX_RENDER_TYPE, GLX_RGBA_BIT,
GLX_DRAWABLE_TYPE, GLX_WINDOW_BIT,
GLX_RED_SIZE, 1,
GLX_GREEN_SIZE, 1,
GLX_BLUE_SIZE, 1,
GLX_ALPHA_SIZE, 1,
GLX_DOUBLEBUFFER, True,
GLX_DEPTH_SIZE, 1,
None };
GLXFBConfig *fbconfigs, fbconfig;
int numfbconfigs, render_event_base, render_error_base;
XVisualInfo *visinfo;
XRenderPictFormat *pictFormat;
/* Make sure we have the RENDER extension */
if(!XRenderQueryExtension(dpy, &render_event_base, &render_error_base)) {
fprintf(stderr, "No RENDER extension found\n");
exit(EXIT_FAILURE);
}
/* Get the list of FBConfigs that match our criteria */
fbconfigs = glXChooseFBConfig(dpy, scrnum, attrib, &numfbconfigs);
if (!fbconfigs) {
/* None matched */
exit(EXIT_FAILURE);
}
/* Find an FBConfig with a visual that has a RENDER picture format that
* has alpha */
for (i = 0; i < numfbconfigs; i++) {
visinfo = glXGetVisualFromFBConfig(dpy, fbconfigs[i]);
if (!visinfo) continue;
pictFormat = XRenderFindVisualFormat(dpy, visinfo->visual);
if (!pictFormat) continue;
if(pictFormat->direct.alphaMask > 0) {
fbconfig = fbconfigs[i];
break;
}
XFree(visinfo);
}
if (i == numfbconfigs) {
/* None of the FBConfigs have alpha. Use a normal (opaque)
* FBConfig instead */
fbconfig = fbconfigs[0];
visinfo = glXGetVisualFromFBConfig(dpy, fbconfig);
pictFormat = XRenderFindVisualFormat(dpy, visinfo->visual);
}
XFree(fbconfigs);
When rendering to a 32-bit window, keep in mind that the X RENDER extension,
used by most composite managers, expects "premultiplied alpha" colors. This
means that if your color has components (r,g,b) and alpha value a, then you
must render (a*r, a*g, a*b, a) into the target window.
More information about Composite can be found at
http://freedesktop.org/Software/CompositeExt
______________________________________________________________________________
Chapter 19. Using the nvidia-settings Utility
______________________________________________________________________________
A graphical configuration utility, 'nvidia-settings', is included with the
NVIDIA FreeBSD graphics driver. After installing the driver and starting X,
you can run this configuration utility by running:
% nvidia-settings
in a terminal window.
Detailed information about the configuration options available are documented
in the help window in the utility.
For more information, see the nvidia-settings man page.
The source code to nvidia-settings is released as GPL and is available here:
ftp://download.nvidia.com/XFree86/nvidia-settings/
If you have trouble running the nvidia-settings binary shipped with the NVIDIA
FreeBSD Graphics Driver, refer to the nvidia-settings entry in Chapter 6.
______________________________________________________________________________
Chapter 20. Configuring SLI and Multi-GPU FrameRendering
______________________________________________________________________________
The NVIDIA FreeBSD driver contains support for NVIDIA SLI FrameRendering and
NVIDIA Multi-GPU FrameRendering. Both of these technologies allow an OpenGL
application to take advantage of multiple GPUs to improve visual performance.
The distinction between SLI and Multi-GPU is straightforward. SLI is used to
leverage the processing power of GPUs across two or more graphics cards, while
Multi-GPU is used to leverage the processing power of two GPUs colocated on
the same graphics card. If you want to link together separate graphics cards,
you should use the "SLI" X config option. Likewise, if you want to link
together GPUs on the same graphics card, you should use the "MultiGPU" X
config option. If you have two cards, each with two GPUs, and you wish to link
them all together, you should use the "SLI" option.
In FreeBSD, with two GPUs SLI and Multi-GPU can both operate in one of three
modes: Alternate Frame Rendering (AFR), Split Frame Rendering (SFR), and
Antialiasing (AA). When AFR mode is active, one GPU draws the next frame while
the other one works on the frame after that. In SFR mode, each frame is split
horizontally into two pieces, with one GPU rendering each piece. The split
line is adjusted to balance the load between the two GPUs. AA mode splits
antialiasing work between the two GPUs. Both GPUs work on the same scene and
the result is blended together to produce the final frame. This mode is useful
for applications that spend most of their time processing with the CPU and
cannot benefit from AFR.
With four GPUs, the same options are applicable. AFR mode cycles through all
four GPUs, each GPU rendering a frame in turn. SFR mode splits the frame
horizontally into four pieces. AA mode splits the work between the four GPUs,
allowing antialiasing up to 64x. With four GPUs SLI can also operate in an
additional mode, Alternate Frame Rendering of Antialiasing. (AFR of AA). With
AFR of AA, pairs of GPUs render alternate frames, each GPU in a pair doing
half of the antialiasing work. Note that these scenarios apply whether you
have four separate cards or you have two cards, each with two GPUs.
Multi-GPU is enabled by setting the "MultiGPU" option in the X configuration
file; see Appendix F for details about the "MultiGPU" option.
The nvidia-xconfig utility can be used to set the "MultiGPU" option, rather
than modifying the X configuration file by hand. For example:
% nvidia-xconfig --multigpu=on
SLI is enabled by setting the "SLI" option in the X configuration file; see
Appendix F for details about the SLI option.
The nvidia-xconfig utility can be used to set the SLI option, rather than
modifying the X configuration file by hand. For example:
% nvidia-xconfig --sli=on
20A. HARDWARE REQUIREMENTS
SLI functionality requires:
o Identical PCI-Express graphics cards
o A supported motherboard
o In most cases, a video bridge connecting the two graphics cards
For the latest in supported SLI and Multi-GPU configurations, including SLI-
and Multi-GPU capable GPUs and SLI-capable motherboards, see
http://www.slizone.com.
20B. OTHER NOTES AND REQUIREMENTS
The following other requirements apply to SLI and Multi-GPU:
o Mobile GPUs are NOT supported
o SLI on Quadro-based graphics cards always requires a video bridge
o TwinView is also not supported with SLI or Multi-GPU. Only one display
can be used when SLI or Multi-GPU is enabled.
o If X is configured to use multiple screens and screen 0 has SLI or
Multi-GPU enabled, the other screens will be disabled. Note that if SLI
or Multi-GPU is enabled, the GPUs used by that configuration will be
unavailable for single GPU rendering.
FREQUENTLY ASKED SLI AND MULTI-GPU QUESTIONS
Q. Why is glxgears slower when SLI or Multi-GPU is enabled?
A. When SLI or Multi-GPU is enabled, the NVIDIA driver must coordinate the
operations of all GPUs when each new frame is swapped (made visible). For
most applications, this GPU synchronization overhead is negligible.
However, because glxgears renders so many frames per second, the GPU
synchronization overhead consumes a significant portion of the total time,
and the framerate is reduced.
Q. Why is Doom 3 slower when SLI or Multi-GPU is enabled?
A. The NVIDIA Accelerated FreeBSD Graphics Driver does not automatically
detect the optimal SLI or Multi-GPU settings for games such as Doom 3 and
Quake 4. To work around this issue, the environment variable __GL_DOOM3 can
be set to tell OpenGL that Doom 3's optimal settings should be used. In
Bash, this can be done in the same command that launches Doom 3 so the
environment variable does not remain set for other OpenGL applications
started in the same session:
% __GL_DOOM3=1 doom3
Doom 3's startup script can also be modified to set this environment
variable:
#!/bin/sh
# Needed to make symlinks/shortcuts work.
# the binaries must run with correct working directory
cd "/usr/local/games/doom3/"
export LD_LIBRARY_PATH=$LD_LIBRARY_PATH:.
export __GL_DOOM3=1
exec ./doom.x86 "$@"
This environment variable is temporary and will be removed in the future.
______________________________________________________________________________
Chapter 21. Configuring Frame Lock and Genlock
______________________________________________________________________________
NOTE: Frame Lock and Genlock features are supported only on specific hardware,
as noted below.
Visual computing applications that involve multiple displays, or even multiple
windows within a display, can require special signal processing and
application controls in order to function properly. For example, in order to
produce quality video recording of animated graphics, the graphics display
must be synchronized with the video camera. As another example, applications
presented on multiple displays must be synchronized in order to complete the
illusion of a larger, virtual canvas.
This synchronization is enabled through the frame lock and genlock
capabilities of the NVIDIA driver. This section describes the setup and use of
frame lock and genlock.
21A. DEFINITION OF TERMS
GENLOCK: Genlock refers to the process of synchronizing the pixel scanning of
one or more displays to an external synchronization source. NVIDIA Genlock
requires the external signal to be either TTL or composite, such as used for
NTSC, PAL, or HDTV. It should be noted that the NVIDIA Genlock implementation
is guaranteed only to be frame-synchronized, and not necessarily
pixel-synchronized.
FRAME LOCK: Frame Lock involves the use of hardware to synchronize the frames
on each display in a connected system. When graphics and video are displayed
across multiple monitors, frame locked systems help maintain image continuity
to create a virtual canvas. Frame lock is especially critical for stereo
viewing, where the left and right fields must be in sync across all displays.
In short, to enable genlock means to sync to an external signal. To enable
frame lock means to sync 2 or more display devices to a signal generated
internally by the hardware, and to use both means to sync 2 or more display
devices to an external signal.
SWAP SYNC: Swap sync refers to the synchronization of buffer swaps of multiple
application windows. By means of swap sync, applications running on multiple
systems can synchronize the application buffer swaps between all the systems.
In order to work across multiple systems, swap sync requires that the systems
are frame locked.
G-SYNC DEVICE: A G-Sync Device refers to devices capable of Frame
lock/Genlock. This can be a graphics card (Quadro FX 3000G) or a stand alone
device (Quadro FX G-Sync). See "Supported Hardware" below.
21B. SUPPORTED HARDWARE
Frame lock and genlock are supported for the following hardware:
Card
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Quadro FX 3000G
Quadro FX G-Sync, used in conjunction with a Quadro FX 4400, Quadro FX
4500, or Quadro FX 5500
Quadro FX G-Sync II, used in conjunction with a Quadro FX 4600, or Quadro
FX 5600
21C. HARDWARE SETUP
Before you begin, you should check that your hardware has been properly
installed. If you are using the Quadro FX 3000G, the genlock/frame lock signal
processing hardware is located on the dual-slot card itself, and after
installing the card, no additional setup is necessary.
If you are using the Quadro FX G-Sync card in conjunction with a graphics
card, the following additional setup steps are required. These steps must be
performed when the system is off.
1. On the Quadro FX G-Sync card, locate the fourteen-pin connector labeled
"primary". If the associated ribbon cable is not already joined to this
connector, do so now. If you plan to use frame lock or genlock in
conjunction with SLI FrameRendering or Multi-GPU FrameRendering (see
Chapter 20) or other multi-GPU configurations, you should connect the
fourteen-pin connector labeled "secondary" to the second GPU. A section
at the end of this appendix describes restrictions on such setups.
2. Install the Quadro FX G-Sync card in any available slot. Note that the
slot itself is only used for support, so even a known "bad" slot is
acceptable. The slot must be close enough to the graphics card that the
ribbon cable can reach.
3. Connect the other end of the ribbon cable to the fourteen-pin connector
on the graphics card.
You may now boot the system and begin the software setup of genlock and/or
frame lock. These instructions assume that you have already successfully
installed the NVIDIA Accelerated FreeBSD Driver Set. If you have not done so,
see Chapter 2.
21D. CONFIGURATION WITH NVIDIA-SETTINGS GUI
Frame lock and genlock are configured through the nvidia-settings utility. See
the 'nvidia-settings(1)' man page, and the nvidia-settings online help (click
the "Help" button in the lower right corner of the interface for per-page help
information).
From the nvidia-settings frame lock panel, you may control the addition of
G-Sync (and display) devices to the frame lock/genlock group, monitor the
status of that group, and enable/disable frame lock and genlock.
After the system has booted and X Windows has been started, run
nvidia-settings as
% nvidia-settings
You may wish to start this utility before continuing, as we refer to it
frequently in the subsequent discussion.
The setup of genlock and frame lock are described separately. We then describe
the use of genlock and frame lock together.
21E. GENLOCK SETUP
After the system has been booted, connect the external signal to the house
sync connector (the BNC connector) on either the graphics card or the G-Sync
card. There is a status LED next to the connector. A solid red LED indicates
that the hardware cannot detect the timing signal. A green LED indicates that
the hardware is detecting a timing signal. An occasional red flash is okay.
The G-Sync device (graphics card or G-Sync card) will need to be configured
correctly for the signal to be detected.
In the frame lock panel of the nvidia-settings interface, add the X Server
that contains the display and G-Sync devices that you would like to sync to
this external source by clicking the "Add Devices..." button. An X Server is
typically specified in the format "system:m", e.g.:
mycomputer.domain.com:0
or
localhost:0
After adding an X Server, rows will appear in the "G-Sync Devices" section on
the frame lock panel that displays relevant status information about the
G-Sync devices, GPUs attached to those G-Sync devices and the display devices
driven by those GPUs. In particular, the G-Sync rows will display the server
name and G-Sync device number along with "Receiving" LED, "Rate", "House" LED,
"Port0"/"Port1" Images, and "Delay" information. The GPU rows will display the
GPU product name information along with the GPU ID for the server. The Display
Device rows will show the display device name and device type along with
server/client checkboxes, refresh rate, "Timing" LED and "Stereo" LED.
Once the G-Sync and display devices have been added to the frame lock/genlock
group, a Server display device will need to be selected. This is done by
selecting the "Server" checkbox of the desired display device.
If you are using a G-Sync card, you must also click the "Use House Sync if
Present" checkbox. To enable synchronization of this G-Sync device to the
external source, click the "Enable Frame Lock" button. The display device(s)
may take a moment to stabilize. If it does not stabilize, you may have
selected a synchronization signal that the system cannot support. You should
disable synchronization by clicking the "Disable Frame Lock" button and check
the external sync signal.
Modifications to genlock settings (e.g., "Use House Sync if Present", "Add
Devices...") must be done while synchronization is disabled.
21F. FRAME LOCK SETUP
Frame Lock is supported across an arbitrary number of Quadro FX 3000 or Quadro
FX G-Sync systems, although mixing the two in the same frame lock group is not
supported. Additionally, each system to be included in the frame lock group
must be configured with identical mode timings. See Chapter 16 for information
on mode timings.
Connect the systems through their RJ45 ports using standard CAT5 patch cables.
These ports are located on the frame lock card itself (either the Quadro FX
3000 or the Quadro FX G-Sync card). DO NOT CONNECT A FRAME LOCK PORT TO AN
ETHERNET CARD OR HUB. DOING SO MAY PERMANENTLY DAMAGE THE HARDWARE. The
connections should be made in a daisy-chain fashion: each card has two RJ45
ports, call them 1 and 2. Connect port 1 of system A to port 2 of system B,
connect port 1 of system B to port 2 of system C, etc. Note that you will
always have two empty ports in your frame lock group.
The ports self-configure as inputs or outputs once frame lock is enabled. Each
port has a yellow and a green LED that reflect this state. A flashing yellow
LED indicates an output and a flashing green LED indicates an input. A solid
green LED indicates that the port has not yet configured.
In the frame lock panel of the nvidia-settings interface, add the X server
that contains the display devices that you would like to include in the frame
lock group by clicking the "Add Devices..." button (see the description for
adding display devices in the previous section on GENLOCK SETUP. Like the
genlock status indicators, the "Port0" and "Port1" columns in the table on the
frame lock panel contain indicators whose states mirror the states of the
physical LEDs on the RJ45 ports. Thus, you may monitor the status of these
ports from the software interface.
Any X Server can be added to the frame lock group, provided that
1. The system supporting the X Server is configured to support frame lock
and is connected via RJ45 cable to the other systems in the frame lock
group.
2. The system driving nvidia-settings can locate and has display privileges
on the X server that is to be included for frame lock.
A system can gain display privileges on a remote system by executing
% xhost +
on the remote system. See the xhost(1) man page for details. Typically, frame
lock is controlled through one of the systems that will be included in the
frame lock group. While this is not a requirement, note that nvidia-settings
will only display the frame lock panel when running on an X server that
supports frame lock.
To enable synchronization on these display devices, click the "Enable Frame
Lock" button. The screens may take a moment to stabilize. If they do not
stabilize, you may have selected mode timings that one or more of the systems
cannot support. In this case you should disable synchronization by clicking
the "Disable Frame Lock" button and refer to Chapter 16 for information on
mode timings.
Modifications to frame lock settings (e.g. "Add/Remove Devices...") must be
done while synchronization is disabled.
21G. FRAME LOCK + GENLOCK
The use of frame lock and genlock together is a simple extension of the above
instructions for using them separately. You should first follow the
instructions for Frame Lock Setup, and then to one of the systems that will be
included in the frame lock group, attach an external sync source. In order to
sync the frame lock group to this single external source, you must select a
display device driven by the GPU connected to the G-Sync card (through the
primary connector) that is connected to the external source to be the signal
server for the group. This is done by selecting the checkbox labeled "Server"
of the tree on the frame lock panel in nvidia-settings. If you are using a
G-Sync based frame lock group, you must also select the "Use House Sync if
Present" checkbox. Enable synchronization by clicking the "Enable Frame Lock"
button. As with other frame lock/genlock controls, you must select the signal
server while synchronization is disabled.
21H. CONFIGURATION WITH NVIDIA-SETTINGS COMMAND LINE
Frame Lock may also be configured through the nvidia-settings command line.
This method of configuring Frame Lock may be useful in a scripted environment
to automate the setup process. (Note that the examples listed below depend on
the actual hardware configuration and as such may not work as-is.)
To properly configure Frame Lock, the following steps should be completed:
1. Make sure Frame Lock Sync is disabled on all GPUs.
2. Make sure all display devices that are to be frame locked have the same
refresh rate.
3. Configure which (display/GPU) device should be the master.
4. Configure house sync (if applicable).
5. Configure the slave display devices.
6. Enable frame lock sync on the master GPU.
7. Enable frame lock sync on the slave GPUs.
8. Toggle the test signal on the master GPU (for testing the hardware
connectivity.)
For a full list of the nvidia-settings Frame Lock attributes, please see the
'nvidia-settings(1)' man page. Examples:
1. 1 System, 1 Frame Lock board, 1 GPU, and 1 display device syncing to the
house signal:
# - Make sure frame lock sync is disabled
nvidia-settings -a [gpu:0]/FrameLockEnable=0
nvidia-settings -q [gpu:0]/FrameLockEnable
# - Query the enabled displays on the gpu
nvidia-settings -q [gpu:0]/EnabledDisplays
# - Check that the refresh rate is the one we want
nvidia-settings -q [gpu:0]/RefreshRate
# - Set the master display device to CRT-0. The desired display
# device(s) to be set are passed in as a hexadecimal number
# in which specific bits denote which display devices to set.
# examples:
#
# 0x00000001 - CRT-0
# 0x00000002 - CRT-1
# 0x00000003 - CRT-0 and CRT-1
#
# 0x00000100 - TV-0
# 0x00000200 - TV-1
#
# 0x00020000 - DFP-1
#
# 0x00010101 - CRT-0, TV-0 and DFP-0
#
# 0x000000FF - All CRTs
# 0x0000FF00 - All TVs
# 0x00FF0000 - All DFPs
#
# Note that the following command:
#
# nvidia-settings -q [gpu:0]/EnabledDisplays
#
# will list the available displays on the given GPU.
nvidia-settings -a [gpu:0]/FrameLockMaster=0x00000001
nvidia-settings -q [gpu:0]/FrameLockMaster
# - Enable use of house sync signal
nvidia-settings -a [framelock:0]/FrameLockUseHouseSync=1
# - Configure the house sync signal video mode
nvidia-settings -a [framelock:0]/FrameLockVideoMode=0
# - Set the slave display device to none (to avoid
# having unwanted display devices locked to the
# sync signal.)
nvidia-settings -a [gpu:0]/FrameLockSlaves=0x00000000
nvidia-settings -q [gpu:0]/FrameLockSlaves
# - Enable framelocking
nvidia-settings -a [gpu:0]/FrameLockEnable=1
# - Toggle the test signal
nvidia-settings -a [gpu:0]/FrameLockTestSignal=1
nvidia-settings -a [gpu:0]/FrameLockTestSignal=0
2. 2 Systems, each with 2 GPUs, 1 Frame Lock board and 1 display device per
GPU syncing from the first system's first display device:
# - Make sure frame lock sync is disabled
nvidia-settings -a myserver:0[gpu:0]/FrameLockEnable=0
nvidia-settings -a myserver:0[gpu:1]/FrameLockEnable=0
nvidia-settings -a myslave1:0[gpu:0]/FrameLockEnable=0
nvidia-settings -a myslave1:0[gpu:1]/FrameLockEnable=0
# - Query the enabled displays on the GPUs
nvidia-settings -q myserver:0[gpu:0]/EnabledDisplays
nvidia-settings -q myserver:0[gpu:1]/EnabledDisplays
nvidia-settings -q myslave1:0[gpu:0]/EnabledDisplays
nvidia-settings -q myslave1:0[gpu:1]/EnabledDisplays
# - Check the refresh rate is the same for all displays
nvidia-settings -q myserver:0[gpu:0]/RefreshRate
nvidia-settings -q myserver:0[gpu:1]/RefreshRate
nvidia-settings -q myslave1:0[gpu:0]/RefreshRate
nvidia-settings -q myslave1:0[gpu:1]/RefreshRate
# - Make sure the display device we want as master is masterable
nvidia-settings -q myserver:0[gpu:0]/FrameLockMasterable
# - Set the master display device (CRT-0)
nvidia-settings -a myserver:0[gpu:0]/FrameLockMaster=0x00000001
# - Disable the house sync signal on the master device
nvidia-settings -a myserver:0[framelock:0]/FrameLockUseHouseSync=0
# - Set the slave display devices
nvidia-settings -a myserver:0[gpu:1]/FrameLockSlaves=0x00000001
nvidia-settings -a myslave1:0[gpu:0]/FrameLockSlaves=0x00000001
nvidia-settings -a myslave1:0[gpu:1]/FrameLockSlaves=0x00000001
# - Enable framelocking on server
nvidia-settings -a myserver:0[gpu:0]/FrameLockEnable=1
# - Enable framelocking on slave devices
nvidia-settings -a myserver:0[gpu:1]/FrameLockEnable=1
nvidia-settings -a myslave1:0[gpu:0]/FrameLockEnable=1
nvidia-settings -a myslave1:0[gpu:1]/FrameLockEnable=1
# - Toggle the test signal
nvidia-settings -a myserver:0[gpu:0]/FrameLockTestSignal=1
nvidia-settings -a myserver:0[gpu:0]/FrameLockTestSignal=0
3. 1 System, 4 GPUs, 2 Frame Lock boards and 2 display devices per GPU
syncing from the first GPU's display device:
# - Make sure frame lock sync is disabled
nvidia-settings -a [gpu:0]/FrameLockEnable=0
nvidia-settings -a [gpu:1]/FrameLockEnable=0
nvidia-settings -a [gpu:2]/FrameLockEnable=0
nvidia-settings -a [gpu:3]/FrameLockEnable=0
# - Query the enabled displays on the GPUs
nvidia-settings -q [gpu:0]/EnabledDisplays
nvidia-settings -q [gpu:1]/EnabledDisplays
nvidia-settings -q [gpu:2]/EnabledDisplays
nvidia-settings -q [gpu:3]/EnabledDisplays
# - Check the refresh rate is the same for all displays
nvidia-settings -q [gpu:0]/RefreshRate
nvidia-settings -q [gpu:1]/RefreshRate
nvidia-settings -q [gpu:2]/RefreshRate
nvidia-settings -q [gpu:3]/RefreshRate
# - Make sure the display device we want as master is masterable
nvidia-settings -q myserver:0[gpu:0]/FrameLockMasterable
# - Set the master display device (CRT-0)
nvidia-settings -a [gpu:0]/FrameLockMaster=0x00000001
# - Disable the house sync signal on the master device
nvidia-settings -a [framelock:0]/FrameLockUseHouseSync=1
# - Set the slave display devices
nvidia-settings -a [gpu:0]/FrameLockSlaves=0x00000002 # CRT-1
nvidia-settings -a [gpu:1]/FrameLockSlaves=0x00000003 # CRT-0 and CRT-1
nvidia-settings -a [gpu:2]/FrameLockSlaves=0x00000003 # CRT-0 and CRT-1
nvidia-settings -a [gpu:3]/FrameLockSlaves=0x00000003 # CRT-0 and CRT-1
# - Enable framelocking on master GPU
nvidia-settings -a [gpu:0]/FrameLockEnable=1
# - Enable framelocking on slave devices
nvidia-settings -a [gpu:1]/FrameLockEnable=1
nvidia-settings -a [gpu:2]/FrameLockEnable=1
nvidia-settings -a [gpu:3]/FrameLockEnable=1
# - Toggle the test signal
nvidia-settings -a [gpu:0]/FrameLockTestSignal=1
nvidia-settings -a [gpu:0]/FrameLockTestSignal=0
21I. LEVERAGING FRAME LOCK/GENLOCK IN OPENGL
With the GLX_NV_swap_group extension, OpenGL applications can be implemented
to join a group of applications within a system for local swap sync, and bind
the group to a barrier for swap sync across a frame lock group. A universal
frame counter is also provided to promote synchronization across applications.
21J. FRAME LOCK RESTRICTIONS:
The following restrictions must be met for enabling frame lock:
1. All display devices set as client in a frame lock group must have the
same mode timings as the server (master) display device. If a House Sync
signal is used (instead of internal timings), all client display devices
must be set to have the same refresh rate as the incoming house sync
signal.
2. All X Screens (driving the selected client/server display devices) must
have the same stereo setting. See Appendix F for instructions on how to
set the stereo X option.
3. The frame lock server (master) display device must be on a GPU on the
primary connector to a G-Sync device.
4. If connecting a single GPU to a G-Sync device, the primary connector must
be used.
5. In configurations with more than one display device per GPU, we recommend
enabling frame lock on all display devices on those GPUs.
6. VT-switching or mdoe-switching will disable frame lock on the display
device. Note that the glXQueryFrameCountNV entry point (provided by the
GLX_NV_swap_group extension) will only provide incrementing numbers while
frame lock is enabled. Therefore, applications that use
glXQueryFrameCountNV to control animation will appear to stop animating
while frame lock is disabled.
21K. SUPPORTED FRAME LOCK CONFIGURATIONS:
The following configurations are currently supported:
1. Basic Frame Lock: Single GPU, Single X Screen, Single Display Device with
or without OpenGL applications that make use of Quad-Buffered Stereo
and/or the GLX_NV_swap_group extension.
2. Frame Lock + TwinView: Single GPU, Single X Screen, Multiple Display
Devices with or without OpenGL applications that make use of
Quad-Buffered Stereo and/or the GLX_NV_swap_group extension.
3. Frame Lock + Xinerama: 1 or more GPU(s), Multiple X Screens, Multiple
Display Devices with or without OpenGL applications that make use of
Quad-Buffered Stereo and/or the GLX_NV_swap_group extension.
4. Frame Lock + TwinView + Xinerama: 1 or more GPU(s), Multiple X Screens,
Multiple Display Devices with or without OpenGL applications that make
use of Quad-Buffered Stereo and/or the GLX_NV_swap_group extension.
5. Frame Lock + SLI SFR, AFR, or AA: 2 GPUs, Single X Screen, Single Display
Device with either OpenGL applications that make use of Quad-Buffered
Stereo or the GLX_NV_swap_group extension. Note that for Frame Lock + SLI
Frame Rendering applications that make use of both Quad-Buffered Stereo
and the GLX_NV_swap_group extension are not supported. Note that only
2-GPU SLI configurations are currently supported.
6. Frame Lock + Multi-GPU SFR, AFR, or AA: 2 GPUs, Single X Screen, Single
Display Device with either OpenGL applications that make use of
Quad-Buffered Stereo or the GLX_NV_swap_group extension. Note that for
Frame Lock + Multi-GPU Frame Rendering applications that make use of both
Quad-Buffered Stereo and the GLX_NV_swap_group extension are not
supported.
______________________________________________________________________________
Chapter 22. Configuring SDI Video Output
______________________________________________________________________________
Broadcast, film, and video post production and digital cinema applications can
require Serial Digital (SDI) or High Definition Serial Digital (HD-SDI) video
output. SDI/HD-SDI is a digital video interface used for the transmission of
uncompressed video signals as well as packetized data. SDI is standardized in
ITU-R BT.656 and SMPTE 259M while HD-SDI is standardized in SMPTE 292M. SMPTE
372M extends HD-SDI to define a dual-link configuration that uses a pair of
SMPTE 292M links to provide a 2.970 Gbit/sec interface. SMPTE 424M extends the
interface further to define a single 2.97 Gbit/sec serial data link.
SDI and HD-SDI video output is provided through the use of the NVIDIA driver
along with an NVIDIA SDI output daughter board. In addition to single- and
dual-link SDI/HD-SDI digital video output, frame lock and genlock
synchronization are provided in order to synchronize the outgoing video with
an external source signal (see Chapter 21 for details on these technologies).
This section describes the setup and use of the SDI video output.
22A. HARDWARE SETUP
Before you begin, you should check that your hardware has been properly
installed. If you are using the Quadro FX 4000SDI, the SDI/HD-SDI hardware is
located on the dual-slot card itself, and after installing the card, no
additional setup is necessary. If you are using the Quadro FX 4500/5500SDI or
Quadro FX 4600/5600 SDI II, the following additional setup steps are required
inorder to connect the SDI daughter card to the graphics card. These steps
must be performed when the system is off.
1. Insert the NVIDIA SDI Output card into any available expansion slot
within six inches of the NVIDIA Quadro graphics card. Secure the card's
bracket using the method provided by the chassis manufacturer (usually a
thumb screw or an integrated latch).
2. Connect one end of the 14-pin ribbon cable to the G-Sync connector on the
NVIDIA Quadro graphics card, and the other end to the NVIDIA SDI output
card.
3. On Quadro FX 4500/5500SDI, connect the SMA-to-BNC cables by screwing the
male SMA connectors onto the female SMA connectors on the NVIDIA SDI
output card. On Quadro FX 4600/5600 SDI II, this step is not necessary:
the SDI II has BNC connectors rather than SMA connectors.
4. Connect the DVI-loopback connector by connecting one end of the DVI cable
to the DVI connector on the NVIDIA SDI output card and the other end to
the "north" DVI connector on the NVIDIA Quadro graphics card. The "north"
DVI connector on the NVIDIA Quadro graphics card is the DVI connector
that is the farthest from the graphics card PCI-E connection to the
motherboard. The SDI output card will NOT function properly if this cable
is connected to the "south" DVI connector.
Once the above installation is complete, you may boot the system and configure
the SDI video output using nvidia-settings. These instructions assume that you
have already successfully installed the NVIDIA FreeBSD Accelerated Graphics
Driver. If you have not done so, see Chapter 2 for details.
22B. CLONE MODE CONFIGURATION WITH 'nvidia-settings'
SDI video output is configured through the nvidia-settings utility. See the
'nvidia-settings(1)' man page, and the nvidia-settings online help (click the
"Help" button in the lower right corner of the interface for per-page help
information).
After the system has booted and X Windows has been started, run
nvidia-settings as
% nvidia-settings
When the NVIDIA X Server Settings page appears, follow the steps below to
configure the SDI video output.
1. Click on the "Graphics to Video Out" tree item on the side menu. This
will open the "Graphics to Video Out" page.
2. Go to the "Synchronization Options" subpage and choose a synchronization
method. From the "Sync Options" dropdown click the list arrow to the
right and then click the method that you want to use to synchronize the
SDI output.
Sync Method Description
------------- --------------------------------------------------
Free Running The SDI output will be synchronized with the
timing chosen from the SDI signal format list.
Genlock SDI output will be synchronized with the external
sync signal.
Frame Lock The SDI output will be synchronized with the
timing chosen from the SDI signal format list. In
this case, the list of available timings is
limited to those timings that can be synchronized
with the detected external sync signal.
Note that on Quadro FX 4600/5600 SDI II, you must first choose the
correct Sync Format before an incoming sync signal will be detected.
3. From the top Graphics to Video Out page, choose the output video format
that will control the video resolution, field rate, and SMPTE signaling
standard for the outgoing video stream. From the "Clone Mode" dropdown
box, click the "Video Format" arrow and then click the signal format that
you would like to use. Note that only those resolutions that are smaller
or equal to the desktop resolution will be available. Also, this list is
pruned according to the sync option selected. If genlock synchronization
is chosen, the output video format is automatically set to match the
incoming video sync format and this drop down list will be grayed out
preventing you from chosing another format. If frame lock synchronization
has been selected, then only those modes that are compatible with the
detected sync signal will be available.
4. Choose the output data format from the "Output Data Format" dropdown
list.
5. Click the "Enable SDI Output" button to enable video output using the
settings above. The status of the SDI output can be verified by examining
the LED indicators in the "Graphics to SDI property" page banner.
6. To subsequently stop SDI output, simply click on the button that now says
"Disable SDI Output".
7. In order to change any of the SDI output parameters such as the Output
Video Format, Output Data Format as well as the Synchronization Delay, it
is necessary to first disable the SDI output.
22C. CONFIGURATION FOR TWINVIEW OR AS A SEPARATE X SCREEN
SDI video output can be configured through the nvidia-settings X Server
Display Configuration page, for use in TwinView or as a separate X screen. The
SDI video output can be configured as if it were a digital flat panel,
choosing the resolution, refresh rate, and position within the desktop.
Similarly, the SDI video output can be configured for use in TwinView or as a
separate X screen through the X configuration file. The supported SDI video
output modes can be requested by name anywhere a mode name can be used in the
X configuration file (either in the "Modes" line, or in the "MetaModes"
option). E.g.,
Option "MetaModes" "CRT-0:nvidia-auto-select, DFP-1:1280x720_60.00_smpte296"
The mode names are reported in the nvidia-settings Display Configuration page
when in advanced mode.
Note that SDI "Clone Mode" as configured through the Graphics to Video Out
page in nvidia-settings is mutually exclusive with using the SDI video output
in TwinView or as a separate X screen.
______________________________________________________________________________
Chapter 23. Configuring Depth 30 Displays
______________________________________________________________________________
This driver release supports X screens with screen depths of 30 bits per pixel
(10 bits per color component) on NVIDIA Quadro GPUs based on G80 and higher
chip architectures. This provides about 1 billion possible colors, allowing
for higher color precision and smoother gradients.
When displaying a depth 30 image on a digital flat panel, the color data will
be dithered to 8 or 6 bits per pixel, depending on the capabilities of the
flat panel. VGA outputs can display the full 10 bit range of colors.
To work reliably, depth 30 requires X.org 7.3 or higher.
NOTE: X servers starting with X.org 7.3 rely on a library called libpixman to
perform software rendering. As of this writing, the officially released
version of this library will crash when it encouters depth 30 drawables. To be
able to run X at this depth, you will need to download, compile, and install
the "wide-composite" development branch from the freedesktop.org pixman git
repository. Please see the freedesktop.org and git documentation for
instructions on how to download and compile development branches.
In addition to the above software requirements, many X applications and
toolkits do not understand depth 30 visuals as of this writing. Some programs
may work correctly, some may work but display incorrect colors, and some may
simply fail to run. In particular, many OpenGL applications request 8 bits of
alpha when searching for FBConfigs. Since depth 30 visuals have only 2 bits of
alpha, no suitable FBConfigs will be found and such applications will fail to
start.
______________________________________________________________________________
Chapter 24. NVIDIA Contact Info and Additional Resources
______________________________________________________________________________
If you believe that you have found a bug or have a problem that you need
assitance with and cannot find the solution elsewhere, or if you have found
innaccuracies in this document, send email to freebsd-gfx-bugs@nvidia.com
Additional Resources
XFree86 Video Timings HOWTO
http://www.tldp.org/HOWTO/XFree86-Video-Timings-HOWTO/index.html
The X.Org Foundation
http://www.x.org/
OpenGL
http://www.opengl.org/
______________________________________________________________________________
Chapter 25. Credits
______________________________________________________________________________
The port of the NVIDIA driver to FreeBSD is due in no small part to the many
contributions of Christian Zander and Matthew N.
Dodd .
______________________________________________________________________________
Chapter 26. Acknowledgements
______________________________________________________________________________
The driver splash screen is decoded using 'libpng':
http://libpng.org/pub/png/libpng.html
This NVIDIA FreeBSD driver contains code from the int10 module of the X.Org
project.
The BSD implementations of the following compiler intrinsics are used for
better portability: __udivdi3, __umoddi3, __moddi3, __ucmpdi2, __cmpdi2,
__fixunssfdi, and __fixunsdfdi.
______________________________________________________________________________
Appendix E. Supported NVIDIA GPU Products
______________________________________________________________________________
For the most complete and accurate listing of supported GPUs, please see the
Supported Products List, available from the NVIDIA FreeBSD x86 Graphics Driver
download page. Please go to http://www.nvidia.com/object/unix.html, follow the
Archive link under the FreeBSD x86 heading, follow the link for the 173.14.38
driver, and then go to the Supported Products List.
E1. NVIDIA GEFORCE GPUS
NVIDIA GPU product Device PCI ID
------------------------------------------------------ ---------------
GeForce 6800 Ultra 0x0040
GeForce 6800 0x0041
GeForce 6800 LE 0x0042
GeForce 6800 XE 0x0043
GeForce 6800 XT 0x0044
GeForce 6800 GT 0x0045
GeForce 6800 GT 0x0046
GeForce 6800 GS 0x0047
GeForce 6800 XT 0x0048
GeForce 7800 GTX 0x0090
GeForce 7800 GTX 0x0091
GeForce 7800 GT 0x0092
GeForce 7800 GS 0x0093
GeForce 7800 SLI 0x0095
GeForce Go 7800 0x0098
GeForce Go 7800 GTX 0x0099
GeForce 6800 GS 0x00C0
GeForce 6800 0x00C1
GeForce 6800 LE 0x00C2
GeForce 6800 XT 0x00C3
GeForce Go 6800 0x00C8
GeForce Go 6800 Ultra 0x00C9
GeForce 6800 0x00F0
GeForce 6600 GT 0x00F1
GeForce 6600 0x00F2
GeForce 6200 0x00F3
GeForce 6600 LE 0x00F4
GeForce 7800 GS 0x00F5
GeForce 6800 GS 0x00F6
GeForce 6800 Ultra 0x00F9
GeForce PCX 5750 0x00FA
GeForce PCX 5900 0x00FB
GeForce PCX 5300 0x00FC
GeForce 6600 GT 0x0140
GeForce 6600 0x0141
GeForce 6600 LE 0x0142
GeForce 6600 VE 0x0143
GeForce Go 6600 0x0144
GeForce 6610 XL 0x0145
GeForce Go 6600 TE/6200 TE 0x0146
GeForce 6700 XL 0x0147
GeForce Go 6600 0x0148
GeForce Go 6600 GT 0x0149
GeForce 6200 0x014F
GeForce 6500 0x0160
GeForce 6200 TurboCache(TM) 0x0161
GeForce 6200SE TurboCache(TM) 0x0162
GeForce 6200 LE 0x0163
GeForce Go 6200 0x0164
GeForce Go 6400 0x0166
GeForce Go 6200 0x0167
GeForce Go 6400 0x0168
GeForce 6250 0x0169
GeForce 7100 GS 0x016A
GeForce 8800 GTX 0x0191
GeForce 8800 GTS 0x0193
GeForce 8800 Ultra 0x0194
Tesla C870 0x0197
GeForce 7350 LE 0x01D0
GeForce 7300 LE 0x01D1
GeForce 7300 SE/7200 GS 0x01D3
GeForce Go 7200 0x01D6
GeForce Go 7300 0x01D7
GeForce Go 7400 0x01D8
GeForce 7500 LE 0x01DD
GeForce 7300 GS 0x01DF
GeForce 6800 0x0211
GeForce 6800 LE 0x0212
GeForce 6800 GT 0x0215
GeForce 6800 XT 0x0218
GeForce 6200 0x0221
GeForce 6200 A-LE 0x0222
GeForce 6150 0x0240
GeForce 6150 LE 0x0241
GeForce 6100 0x0242
GeForce Go 6150 0x0244
GeForce Go 6100 0x0247
GeForce 7900 GTX 0x0290
GeForce 7900 GT/GTO 0x0291
GeForce 7900 GS 0x0292
GeForce 7950 GX2 0x0293
GeForce 7950 GX2 0x0294
GeForce 7950 GT 0x0295
GeForce Go 7950 GTX 0x0297
GeForce Go 7900 GS 0x0298
GeForce Go 7900 GTX 0x0299
GeForce 7600 GT 0x02E0
GeForce 7600 GS 0x02E1
GeForce 7900 GS 0x02E3
GeForce 7950 GT 0x02E4
GeForce FX 5800 Ultra 0x0301
GeForce FX 5800 0x0302
GeForce FX 5600 Ultra 0x0311
GeForce FX 5600 0x0312
GeForce FX 5600XT 0x0314
GeForce FX Go5600 0x031A
GeForce FX Go5650 0x031B
GeForce FX 5200 0x0320
GeForce FX 5200 Ultra 0x0321
GeForce FX 5200 0x0322
GeForce FX 5200LE 0x0323
GeForce FX Go5200 0x0324
GeForce FX Go5250 0x0325
GeForce FX 5500 0x0326
GeForce FX 5100 0x0327
GeForce FX Go5200 32M/64M 0x0328
GeForce FX Go53xx 0x032C
GeForce FX Go5100 0x032D
GeForce FX 5900 Ultra 0x0330
GeForce FX 5900 0x0331
GeForce FX 5900XT 0x0332
GeForce FX 5950 Ultra 0x0333
GeForce FX 5900ZT 0x0334
GeForce FX 5700 Ultra 0x0341
GeForce FX 5700 0x0342
GeForce FX 5700LE 0x0343
GeForce FX 5700VE 0x0344
GeForce FX Go5700 0x0347
GeForce FX Go5700 0x0348
GeForce 7650 GS 0x0390
GeForce 7600 GT 0x0391
GeForce 7600 GS 0x0392
GeForce 7300 GT 0x0393
GeForce 7600 LE 0x0394
GeForce 7300 GT 0x0395
GeForce Go 7600 0x0398
GeForce Go 7600 GT 0x0399
GeForce 6150SE nForce 430 0x03D0
GeForce 6100 nForce 405 0x03D1
GeForce 6100 nForce 400 0x03D2
GeForce 6100 nForce 420 0x03D5
GeForce 8600 GTS 0x0400
GeForce 8600 GT 0x0401
GeForce 8600 GT 0x0402
GeForce 8600 GS 0x0403
GeForce 8400 GS 0x0404
GeForce 9500M GS 0x0405
GeForce 8600M GT 0x0407
GeForce 9650M GS 0x0408
GeForce 8700M GT 0x0409
GeForce 8400 SE 0x0420
GeForce 8500 GT 0x0421
GeForce 8400 GS 0x0422
GeForce 8300 GS 0x0423
GeForce 8400 GS 0x0424
GeForce 8600M GS 0x0425
GeForce 8400M GT 0x0426
GeForce 8400M GS 0x0427
GeForce 8400M G 0x0428
GeForce 9300M G 0x042E
GeForce 7150M / nForce 630M 0x0531
GeForce 7000M / nForce 610M 0x0533
GeForce 7050 PV / NVIDIA nForce 630a 0x053A
GeForce 7050 PV / NVIDIA nForce 630a 0x053B
GeForce 7025 / NVIDIA nForce 630a 0x053E
GeForce 8800 GTS 512 0x0600
GeForce 8800 GT 0x0602
GeForce 9800 GX2 0x0604
GeForce 8800 GS 0x0606
GeForce 8800M GTS 0x0609
GeForce 8800M GTX 0x060C
GeForce 8800 GS 0x060D
GeForce 9600 GSO 0x0610
GeForce 8800 GT 0x0611
GeForce 9800 GTX 0x0612
GeForce 9600 GT 0x0622
GeForce 9600M GT 0x0647
GeForce 9600M GS 0x0648
GeForce 9600M GT 0x0649
GeForce 9500M G 0x064B
GeForce 8400 GS 0x06E4
GeForce 9300M GS 0x06E5
GeForce 9200M GS 0x06E8
GeForce 9300M GS 0x06E9
GeForce 7150 / NVIDIA nForce 630i 0x07E0
GeForce 7100 / NVIDIA nForce 630i 0x07E1
GeForce 7050 / NVIDIA nForce 610i 0x07E3
GeForce 9100M G 0x0844
GeForce 8300 0x0848
GeForce 8200 0x0849
nForce 730a 0x084A
GeForce 8200 0x084B
GeForce 8100 / nForce 720a 0x084F
E2. NVIDIA QUADRO GPUS
NVIDIA GPU product Device PCI ID
------------------------------------------------------ ---------------
Quadro FX 4000 0x004E
Quadro FX 4500 0x009D
Quadro FX Go1400 0x00CC
Quadro FX 3450/4000 SDI 0x00CD
Quadro FX 1400 0x00CE
Quadro FX 4400/Quadro FX 3400 0x00F8
Quadro FX 330 0x00FC
Quadro NVS 280 PCI-E/Quadro FX 330 0x00FD
Quadro FX 1300 0x00FE
Quadro NVS 440 0x014A
Quadro FX 540M 0x014C
Quadro FX 550 0x014D
Quadro FX 540 0x014E
Quadro NVS 285 0x0165
Quadro FX 5600 0x019D
Quadro FX 4600 0x019E
Quadro NVS 110M 0x01D7
Quadro NVS 110M 0x01DA
Quadro NVS 120M 0x01DB
Quadro FX 350M 0x01DC
Quadro FX 350 0x01DE
Quadro NVS 210S / NVIDIA GeForce 6150LE 0x0245
Quadro FX 2500M 0x029A
Quadro FX 1500M 0x029B
Quadro FX 5500 0x029C
Quadro FX 3500 0x029D
Quadro FX 1500 0x029E
Quadro FX 4500 X2 0x029F
Quadro FX 2000 0x0308
Quadro FX 1000 0x0309
Quadro FX Go700 0x031C
Quadro NVS 55/280 PCI 0x032A
Quadro FX 500/FX 600 0x032B
Quadro FX 3000 0x0338
Quadro FX 700 0x033F
Quadro FX Go1000 0x034C
Quadro FX 1100 0x034E
Quadro FX 560 0x039E
Quadro FX 370 0x040A
Quadro NVS 320M 0x040B
Quadro FX 570M 0x040C
Quadro FX 1600M 0x040D
Quadro FX 570 0x040E
Quadro FX 1700 0x040F
Quadro NVS 140M 0x0429
Quadro NVS 130M 0x042A
Quadro NVS 135M 0x042B
Quadro FX 360M 0x042D
Quadro NVS 290 0x042F
Quadro FX 3700 0x061A
Quadro FX 3600M 0x061C
Below are the legacy GPUs that are no longer supported in the unified driver.
These GPUs will continue to be maintained through the special legacy NVIDIA
GPU driver releases.
The 96.43.xx driver supports the following set of GPUs:
NVIDIA GPU product Device PCI ID
---------------------------------- ----------------------------------
GeForce2 MX/MX 400 0x0110
GeForce2 MX 100/200 0x0111
GeForce2 Go 0x0112
Quadro2 MXR/EX/Go 0x0113
GeForce4 MX 460 0x0170
GeForce4 MX 440 0x0171
GeForce4 MX 420 0x0172
GeForce4 MX 440-SE 0x0173
GeForce4 440 Go 0x0174
GeForce4 420 Go 0x0175
GeForce4 420 Go 32M 0x0176
GeForce4 460 Go 0x0177
Quadro4 550 XGL 0x0178
GeForce4 440 Go 64M 0x0179
Quadro NVS 400 0x017A
Quadro4 500 GoGL 0x017C
GeForce4 410 Go 16M 0x017D
GeForce4 MX 440 with AGP8X 0x0181
GeForce4 MX 440SE with AGP8X 0x0182
GeForce4 MX 420 with AGP8X 0x0183
GeForce4 MX 4000 0x0185
Quadro4 580 XGL 0x0188
Quadro NVS 280 SD 0x018A
Quadro4 380 XGL 0x018B
Quadro NVS 50 PCI 0x018C
GeForce2 Integrated GPU 0x01A0
GeForce4 MX Integrated GPU 0x01F0
GeForce3 0x0200
GeForce3 Ti 200 0x0201
GeForce3 Ti 500 0x0202
Quadro DCC 0x0203
GeForce4 Ti 4600 0x0250
GeForce4 Ti 4400 0x0251
GeForce4 Ti 4200 0x0253
Quadro4 900 XGL 0x0258
Quadro4 750 XGL 0x0259
Quadro4 700 XGL 0x025B
GeForce4 Ti 4800 0x0280
GeForce4 Ti 4200 with AGP8X 0x0281
GeForce4 Ti 4800 SE 0x0282
GeForce4 4200 Go 0x0286
Quadro4 980 XGL 0x0288
Quadro4 780 XGL 0x0289
Quadro4 700 GoGL 0x028C
The 71.86.xx driver supports the following set of GPUs:
NVIDIA GPU product Device PCI ID
---------------------------------- ----------------------------------
RIVA TNT 0x0020
RIVA TNT2/TNT2 Pro 0x0028
RIVA TNT2 Ultra 0x0029
Vanta/Vanta LT 0x002C
RIVA TNT2 Model 64/Model 64 Pro 0x002D
Aladdin TNT2 0x00A0
GeForce 256 0x0100
GeForce DDR 0x0101
Quadro 0x0103
GeForce2 GTS/GeForce2 Pro 0x0150
GeForce2 Ti 0x0151
GeForce2 Ultra 0x0152
Quadro2 Pro 0x0153
______________________________________________________________________________
Appendix F. X Config Options
______________________________________________________________________________
The following driver options are supported by the NVIDIA X driver. They may be
specified either in the Screen or Device sections of the X config file.
X Config Options
Option "NvAGP" "integer"
Configure AGP support. Integer argument can be one of:
Value Behavior
-------------- ---------------------------------------------------
0 disable AGP
1 use NVIDIA internal AGP support, if possible
2 use AGPGART, if possible
3 use any AGP support (try AGPGART, then NVIDIA AGP)
Note that NVIDIA internal AGP support cannot work if AGPGART is either
statically compiled into your kernel or is built as a module and loaded
into your kernel. See Chapter 9 for details. Default: 3.
Option "NoLogo" "boolean"
Disable drawing of the NVIDIA logo splash screen at X startup. Default:
the logo is drawn for screens with depth 24.
Option "LogoPath" "string"
Sets the path to the PNG file to be used as the logo splash screen at X
startup. If the PNG file specified has a bKGD (background color) chunk,
then the screen is cleared to the color it specifies. Otherwise, the
screen is cleared to black. The logo file must be owned by root and must
not be writable by a non-root group. Note that a logo is only displayed
for screens with depth 24. Default: The built-in NVIDIA logo is used.
Option "RenderAccel" "boolean"
Enable or disable hardware acceleration of the RENDER extension. Default:
hardware acceleration of the RENDER extension is enabled.
Option "NoRenderExtension" "boolean"
Disable the RENDER extension. Other than recompiling it, the X server does
not seem to have another way of disabling this. Fortunately, we can
control this from the driver so we export this option. This is useful in
depth 8 where RENDER would normally steal most of the default colormap.
Default: RENDER is offered when possible.
Option "UBB" "boolean"
Enable or disable the Unified Back Buffer on Quadro-based GPUs (Quadro4
NVS excluded); see Chapter 17 for a description of UBB. This option has no
effect on non-Quadro GPU products. Default: UBB is on for Quadro GPUs.
Option "NoFlip" "boolean"
Disable OpenGL flipping; see Chapter 17 for a description. Default: OpenGL
will swap by flipping when possible.
Option "Dac8Bit" "boolean"
Most Quadro products by default use a 10-bit color look-up table (LUT);
setting this option to TRUE forces these GPUs to use an 8-bit (LUT).
Default: a 10-bit LUT is used, when available.
Option "Overlay" "boolean"
Enables RGB workstation overlay visuals. This is only supported on Quadro
GPUs (Quadro NVS GPUs excluded) in depth 24. This option causes the server
to advertise the SERVER_OVERLAY_VISUALS root window property and GLX will
report single- and double-buffered, Z-buffered 16-bit overlay visuals. The
transparency key is pixel 0x0000 (hex). There is no gamma correction
support in the overlay plane. This feature requires XFree86 version 4.1.0
or newer, or the X.Org X server. When TwinView is enabled, or the X screen
is either wider than 2046 pixels or taller than 2047, the overlay may be
emulated with a substantial performance penalty. RGB workstation overlays
are not supported when the Composite extension is enabled. Dynamic
TwinView is disabled when Overlays are enabled. Default: off.
UBB must be enabled when overlays are enabled (this is the default
behavior).
Option "CIOverlay" "boolean"
Enables Color Index workstation overlay visuals with identical
restrictions to Option "Overlay" above. The server will offer visuals both
with and without a transparency key. These are depth 8 PseudoColor
visuals. Enabling Color Index overlays on X servers older than XFree86 4.3
will force the RENDER extension to be disabled due to bugs in the RENDER
extension in older X servers. Color Index workstation overlays are not
supported when the Composite extension is enabled. Default: off.
UBB must be enabled when overlays are enabled (this is the default
behavior).
Option "TransparentIndex" "integer"
When color index overlays are enabled, use this option to choose which
pixel is used for the transparent pixel in visuals featuring transparent
pixels. This value is clamped between 0 and 255 (Note: some applications
such as Alias's Maya require this to be zero in order to work correctly).
Default: 0.
Option "OverlayDefaultVisual" "boolean"
When overlays are used, this option sets the default visual to an overlay
visual thereby putting the root window in the overlay. This option is not
recommended for RGB overlays. Default: off.
Option "EmulatedOverlaysTimerMs" "integer"
Enables the use of a timer within the X server to perform the updates to
the emulated overlay or CI overlay. This option can be used to improve the
performance of the emulated or CI overlays by reducing the frequency of
the updates. The value specified indicates the desired number of
milliseconds between overlay updates. To disable the use of the timer
either leave the option unset or set it to 0. Default: off.
Option "EmulatedOverlaysThreshold" "boolean"
Enables the use of a threshold within the X server to perform the updates
to the emulated overlay or CI overlay. The emulated or CI overlay updates
can be defered but this threshold will limit the number of defered OpenGL
updates allowed before the overlay is updated. This option can be used to
trade off performance and animation quality. Default: on.
Option "EmulatedOverlaysThresholdValue" "integer"
Controls the threshold used in updating the emulated or CI overlays. This
is used in conjunction with the EmulatedOverlaysThreshold option to trade
off performance and animation quality. Higher values for this option favor
performance over quality. Setting low values of this option will not cause
the overlay to be updated more often than the frequence specified by the
EmulatedOverlaysTimerMs option. Default: 5.
Option "RandRRotation" "boolean"
Enable rotation support for the XRandR extension. This allows use of the
XRandR X server extension for configuring the screen orientation through
rotation. This feature is supported using depth 24. This requires an X.Org
X 6.8.1 or newer X server. This feature does not work with hardware
overlays; emulated overlays will be used instead at a substantial
performance penalty. See Chapter 14 for details. Default: off.
Option "Rotate" "string"
Enable static rotation support. Unlike the RandRRotation option above,
this option takes effect as soon as the X server is started and will work
with older versions of X. This feature is supported using depth 24. This
feature does not work with hardware overlays; emulated overlays will be
used instead at a substantial performance penalty. This option is not
compatible with the RandR extension. Valid rotations are "normal", "left",
"inverted", and "right". Default: off.
Option "AllowDDCCI" "boolean"
Enables DDC/CI support in the NV-CONTROL X extension. DDC/CI is a
mechanism for communication between your computer and your display device.
This can be used to set the values normally controlled through your
display device's On Screen Display. See the DDC/CI NV-CONTROL attributes
in 'NVCtrl.h' and functions in 'NVCtrlLib.h' in the 'nvidia-settings'
source code. Default: off (DDC/CI is disabled).
Note that support for DDC/CI within the NVIDIA X driver's NV-CONTROL
extension is deprecated, and will be removed in a future release. Other
mechanisms for DDC/CI, such as the kernel i2c subsystem on Linux, are
preferred over NV-CONTROL's DDC/CI support.
If you would prefer that the NVIDIA X driver's NV-CONTROL X extension not
remove DDC/CI support, please make your concerns known my emailing
linux-bugs@nvidia.com.
Option "SWCursor" "boolean"
Enable or disable software rendering of the X cursor. Default: off.
Option "HWCursor" "boolean"
Enable or disable hardware rendering of the X cursor. Default: on.
Option "CursorShadow" "boolean"
Enable or disable use of a shadow with the hardware accelerated cursor;
this is a black translucent replica of your cursor shape at a given offset
from the real cursor. Default: off (no cursor shadow).
Option "CursorShadowAlpha" "integer"
The alpha value to use for the cursor shadow; only applicable if
CursorShadow is enabled. This value must be in the range [0, 255] -- 0 is
completely transparent; 255 is completely opaque. Default: 64.
Option "CursorShadowXOffset" "integer"
The offset, in pixels, that the shadow image will be shifted to the right
from the real cursor image; only applicable if CursorShadow is enabled.
This value must be in the range [0, 32]. Default: 4.
Option "CursorShadowYOffset" "integer"
The offset, in pixels, that the shadow image will be shifted down from the
real cursor image; only applicable if CursorShadow is enabled. This value
must be in the range [0, 32]. Default: 2.
Option "ConnectedMonitor" "string"
Allows you to override what the NVIDIA kernel module detects is connected
to your graphics card. This may be useful, for example, if you use a KVM
(keyboard, video, mouse) switch and you are switched away when X is
started. In such a situation, the NVIDIA kernel module cannot detect which
display devices are connected, and the NVIDIA X driver assumes you have a
single CRT.
Valid values for this option are "CRT" (cathode ray tube), "DFP" (digital
flat panel), or "TV" (television); if using TwinView, this option may be a
comma-separated list of display devices; e.g.: "CRT, CRT" or "CRT, DFP".
It is generally recommended to not use this option, but instead use the
"UseDisplayDevice" option.
NOTE: anything attached to a 15 pin VGA connector is regarded by the
driver as a CRT. "DFP" should only be used to refer to digital flat panels
connected via a DVI port.
Default: string is NULL (the NVIDIA driver will detect the connected
display devices).
Option "UseDisplayDevice" "string"
The "UseDisplayDevice" X configuration option is a list of one or more
display devices, which limits the display devices the NVIDIA X driver will
consider for an X screen. The display device names used in the option may
be either specific (with a numeric suffix; e.g., "DFP-1") or general
(without a numeric suffix; e.g., "DFP").
When assigning display devices to X screens, the NVIDIA X driver walks
through the list of all (not already assigned) display devices detected as
connected. When the "UseDisplayDevice" X configuration option is
specified, the X driver will only consider connected display devices which
are also included in the "UseDisplayDevice" list. This can be thought of
as a "mask" against the connected (and not already assigned) display
devices.
Note the subtle difference between this option and the "ConnectedMonitor"
option: the "ConnectedMonitor" option overrides which display devices are
actually detected, while the "UseDisplayDevice" option controls which of
the detected display devices will be used on this X screen.
Of the list of display devices considered for this X screen (either all
connected display devices, or a subset limited by the "UseDisplayDevice"
option), the NVIDIA X driver first looks at CRTs, then at DFPs, and
finally at TVs. For example, if both a CRT and a DFP are connected, by
default the X driver would assign the CRT to this X screen. However, by
specifying:
Option "UseDisplayDevice" "DFP"
the X screen would use the DFP instead. Or, if CRT-0, DFP-0, and DFP-1 are
connected and TwinView is enabled, the X driver would assign CRT-0 and
DFP-0 to the X screen. However, by specifying:
Option "UseDisplayDevice" "CRT-0, DFP-1"
the X screen would use CRT-0 and DFP-1 instead.
Additionally, the special value "none" can be specified for the
"UseDisplayDevice" option. When this value is given, any programming of
the display hardware is disabled. The NVIDIA driver will not perform any
mode validation or modesetting for this X screen. This is intended for use
in conjunction with CUDA or in remote graphics solutions such as VNC or
Hewlett Packard's Remote Graphics Software (RGS). This functionality is
only available on Quadro and Tesla GPUs.
Note the following restrictions for setting the "UseDisplayDevice" to
"none":
o OpenGL SyncToVBlank will have no effect.
o You must also explicitly specify the Virtual screen size for your X
screen (see the xorg.conf(5x) or XF86Config(5x) manpages for the
'Virtual' option, or the nvidia-xconfig(1) manpage for the
'--virtual' commandline option); the Virtual screen size must be at
least 304x200, and the width must be a multiple of 8.
o None of Stereo, Overlay, CIOverlay, or SLI are allowed when
"UseDisplayDevice" is set to "none".
Option "UseEdidFreqs" "boolean"
This option controls whether the NVIDIA X driver will use the HorizSync
and VertRefresh ranges given in a display device's EDID, if any. When
UseEdidFreqs is set to True, EDID-provided range information will override
the HorizSync and VertRefresh ranges specified in the Monitor section. If
a display device does not provide an EDID, or the EDID does not specify an
hsync or vrefresh range, then the X server will default to the HorizSync
and VertRefresh ranges specified in the Monitor section of your X config
file. These frequency ranges are used when validating modes for your
display device.
Default: True (EDID frequencies will be used)
Option "UseEDID" "boolean"
By default, the NVIDIA X driver makes use of a display device's EDID, when
available, during construction of its mode pool. The EDID is used as a
source for possible modes, for valid frequency ranges, and for collecting
data on the physical dimensions of the display device for computing the
DPI (see Appendix I). However, if you wish to disable the driver's use of
the EDID, you can set this option to False:
Option "UseEDID" "FALSE"
Note that, rather than globally disable all uses of the EDID, you can
individually disable each particular use of the EDID; e.g.,
Option "UseEDIDFreqs" "FALSE"
Option "UseEDIDDpi" "FALSE"
Option "ModeValidation" "NoEdidModes"
Default: True (use EDID).
Option "IgnoreEDID" "boolean"
This option is deprecated, and no longer affects behavior of the X driver.
See the "UseEDID" option for details.
Option "NoDDC" "boolean"
Synonym for "IgnoreEDID". This option is deprecated, and no longer affects
behavior of the X driver. See the "UseEDID" option for details.
Option "UseInt10Module" "boolean"
Enable use of the X Int10 module to soft-boot all secondary cards, rather
than POSTing the cards through the NVIDIA kernel module. Default: off
(POSTing is done through the NVIDIA kernel module).
Option "TwinView" "boolean"
Enable or disable TwinView. See Chapter 10 for details. Default: off
(TwinView is disabled).
Option "TwinViewOrientation" "string"
Controls the relationship between the two display devices when using
TwinView. Takes one of the following values: "RightOf" "LeftOf" "Above"
"Below" "Clone". See Chapter 10 for details. Default: string is NULL.
Option "SecondMonitorHorizSync" "range(s)"
This option is like the HorizSync entry in the Monitor section, but is for
the second monitor when using TwinView. See Chapter 10 for details.
Default: none.
Option "SecondMonitorVertRefresh" "range(s)"
This option is like the VertRefresh entry in the Monitor section, but is
for the second monitor when using TwinView. See Chapter 10 for details.
Default: none.
Option "MetaModes" "string"
This option describes the combination of modes to use on each monitor when
using TwinView. See Chapter 10 for details. Default: string is NULL.
Option "NoTwinViewXineramaInfo" "boolean"
When in TwinView, the NVIDIA X driver normally provides a Xinerama
extension that X clients (such as window managers) can use to discover the
current TwinView configuration, such as where each display device is
positioned within the X screen. Some window mangers get confused by this
information, so this option is provided to disable this behavior. Default:
false (TwinView Xinerama information is provided).
Option "TwinViewXineramaInfoOrder" "string"
When the NVIDIA X driver provides TwinViewXineramaInfo (see the
NoTwinViewXineramaInfo X config option), it by default reports the
currently enabled display devices in the order "CRT, DFP, TV". The
TwinViewXineramaInfoOrder X config option can be used to override this
order.
The option string is a comma-separated list of display device names. The
display device names can either be general (e.g, "CRT", which identifies
all CRTs), or specific (e.g., "CRT-1", which identifies a particular CRT).
Not all display devices need to be identified in the option string;
display devices that are not listed will be implicitly appended to the end
of the list, in their default order.
Note that TwinViewXineramaInfoOrder tracks all display devices that could
possibly be connected to the GPU, not just the ones that are currently
enabled. When reporting the Xinerama information, the NVIDIA X driver
walks through the display devices in the order specified, only reporting
enabled display devices.
Examples:
"DFP"
"TV, DFP"
"DFP-1, DFP-0, TV, CRT"
In the first example, any enabled DFPs would be reported first (any
enabled CRTs or TVs would be reported afterwards). In the second example,
any enabled TVs would be reported first, then any enabled DFPs (any
enabled CRTs would be reported last). In the last example, if DFP-1 were
enabled, it would be reported first, then DFP-0, then any enabled TVs, and
then any enabled CRTs; finally, any other enabled DFPs would be reported.
Default: "CRT, DFP, TV"
Option "TwinViewXineramaInfoOverride" "string"
This option overrides the values reported by NVIDIA's TwinView Xinerama
implementation. This disregards the actual display devices used by the X
screen and any order specified in TwinViewXineramaInfoOrder.
The option string is interpreted as a comma-separated list of regions,
specified as '[width]x[height]+[xoffset]+[yoffset]'. The regions' sizes
and offsets are not validated against the X screen size, but are directly
reported to any Xinerama client.
Examples:
"1600x1200+0+0, 1600x1200+1600+0"
"1024x768+0+0, 1024x768+1024+0, 1024x768+0+768, 1024x768+1024+768"
Option "TVStandard" "string"
See Chapter 13 for details on configuring TV-out.
Option "TVOutFormat" "string"
See Chapter 13 for details on configuring TV-out.
Option "TVOverScan" "Decimal value in the range 0.0 to 1.0"
Valid values are in the range 0.0 through 1.0; See Chapter 13 for details
on configuring TV-out.
Option "Stereo" "integer"
Enable offering of quad-buffered stereo visuals on Quadro. Integer
indicates the type of stereo equipment being used:
Value Equipment
-------------- ---------------------------------------------------
1 DDC glasses. The sync signal is sent to the
glasses via the DDC signal to the monitor. These
usually involve a passthrough cable between the
monitor and the graphics card. This mode is not
available on G8xGL and higher GPUs.
2 "Blueline" glasses. These usually involve a
passthrough cable between the monitor and graphics
card. The glasses know which eye to display based
on the length of a blue line visible at the bottom
of the screen. When in this mode, the root window
dimensions are one pixel shorter in the Y
dimension than requested. This mode does not work
with virtual root window sizes larger than the
visible root window size (desktop panning). This
mode is not available on G8xGL and higher GPUs.
3 Onboard stereo support. This is usually only found
on professional cards. The glasses connect via a
DIN connector on the back of the graphics card.
4 TwinView clone mode stereo (aka "passive" stereo).
On graphics cards that support TwinView, the left
eye is displayed on the first display, and the
right eye is displayed on the second display. This
is normally used in conjunction with special
projectors to produce 2 polarized images which are
then viewed with polarized glasses. To use this
stereo mode, you must also configure TwinView in
clone mode with the same resolution, panning
offset, and panning domains on each display.
5 Vertical interlaced stereo mode, for use with
SeeReal Stereo Digital Flat Panels.
6 Color interleaved stereo mode, for use with
Sharp3D Stereo Digital Flat Panels.
Stereo is only available on Quadro cards. Stereo options 1, 2, and 3 (aka
"active" stereo) may be used with TwinView if all modes within each
MetaMode have identical timing values. See Chapter 16 for suggestions on
making sure the modes within your MetaModes are identical. The identical
ModeLine requirement is not necessary for Stereo option 4 ("passive"
stereo). Currently, stereo operation may be "quirky" on the original
Quadro (NV10) GPU and left-right flipping may be erratic. We are trying to
resolve this issue for a future release. Default: 0 (Stereo is not
enabled).
UBB must be enabled when stereo is enabled (this is the default behavior).
Stereo options 1, 2, and 3 (aka "active" stereo) are not supported on
digital flat panels.
Multi-GPU cards (such as the Quadro FX 4500 X2) provide a single connector
for onboard stereo support (option 3), which is tied to the bottommost
GPU. In order to synchronize onboard stereo with the other GPU, you must
use a G-Sync device (see Chapter 21 for details).
Option "AllowDFPStereo" "boolean"
By default, the NVIDIA X driver performs a check which disables active
stereo (stereo options 1, 2, and 3) if the X screen is driving a DFP. The
"AllowDFPStereo" option bypasses this check.
Option "ForceStereoFlipping" "boolean"
Stereo flipping is the process by which left and right eyes are displayed
on alternating vertical refreshes. Normally, stereo flipping is only
performed when a stereo drawable is visible. This option forces stereo
flipping even when no stereo drawables are visible.
This is to be used in conjunction with the "Stereo" option. If "Stereo" is
0, the "ForceStereoFlipping" option has no effect. If otherwise, the
"ForceStereoFlipping" option will force the behavior indicated by the
"Stereo" option, even if no stereo drawables are visible. This option is
useful in a multiple-screen environment in which a stereo application is
run on a different screen than the stereo master.
Possible values:
Value Behavior
-------------- ---------------------------------------------------
0 Stereo flipping is not forced. The default
behavior as indicated by the "Stereo" option is
used.
1 Stereo flipping is forced. Stereo is running even
if no stereo drawables are visible. The stereo
mode depends on the value of the "Stereo" option.
Default: 0 (Stereo flipping is not forced). Note that active stereo is not
supported on digital flat panels.
Option "XineramaStereoFlipping" "boolean"
By default, when using Stereo with Xinerama, all physical X screens having
a visible stereo drawable will stereo flip. Use this option to allow only
one physical X screen to stereo flip at a time.
This is to be used in conjunction with the "Stereo" and "Xinerama"
options. If "Stereo" is 0 or "Xinerama" is 0, the "XineramaStereoFlipping"
option has no effect.
If you wish to have all X screens stereo flip all the time, see the
"ForceStereoFlipping" option.
Possible values:
Value Behavior
-------------- ---------------------------------------------------
0 Stereo flipping is enabled on one X screen at a
time. Stereo is enabled on the first X screen
having the stereo drawable.
1 Stereo flipping in enabled on all X screens.
Default: 1 (Stereo flipping is enabled on all X screens).
Option "NoBandWidthTest" "boolean"
As part of mode validation, the X driver tests if a given mode fits within
the hardware's memory bandwidth constraints. This option disables this
test. Default: false (the memory bandwidth test is performed).
Option "IgnoreDisplayDevices" "string"
This option tells the NVIDIA kernel module to completely ignore the
indicated classes of display devices when checking which display devices
are connected. You may specify a comma-separated list containing any of
"CRT", "DFP", and "TV". For example:
Option "IgnoreDisplayDevices" "DFP, TV"
will cause the NVIDIA driver to not attempt to detect if any digital flat
panels or TVs are connected. This option is not normally necessary;
however, some video BIOSes contain incorrect information about which
display devices may be connected, or which i2c port should be used for
detection. These errors can cause long delays in starting X. If you are
experiencing such delays, you may be able to avoid this by telling the
NVIDIA driver to ignore display devices which you know are not connected.
NOTE: anything attached to a 15 pin VGA connector is regarded by the
driver as a CRT. "DFP" should only be used to refer to digital flat panels
connected via a DVI port.
Option "MultisampleCompatibility" "boolean"
Enable or disable the use of separate front and back multisample buffers.
Enabling this will consume more memory but is necessary for correct output
when rendering to both the front and back buffers of a multisample or FSAA
drawable. This option is necessary for correct operation of SoftImage XSI.
Default: false (a single multisample buffer is shared between the front
and back buffers).
Option "NoPowerConnectorCheck" "boolean"
The NVIDIA X driver will abort X server initialization if it detects that
a GPU that requires an external power connector does not have an external
power connector plugged in. This option can be used to bypass this test.
Default: false (the power connector test is performed).
Option "XvmcUsesTextures" "boolean"
Forces XvMC to use the 3D engine for XvMCPutSurface requests rather than
the video overlay. Default: false (video overlay is used when available).
Option "AllowGLXWithComposite" "boolean"
Enables GLX even when the Composite X extension is loaded. ENABLE AT YOUR
OWN RISK. OpenGL applications will not display correctly in many
circumstances with this setting enabled.
This option is intended for use on X.Org X servers older than X11R6.9.0.
On X11R6.9.0 or newer X servers, the NVIDIA OpenGL implementation
interacts properly by default with the Composite X extension and this
option should not be needed. However, on X11R6.9.0 or newer X servers,
support for GLX with Composite can be disabled by setting this option to
False.
Default: false (GLX is disabled when Composite is enabled on X servers
older than X11R6.9.0).
Option "UseCompositeWrapper" "boolean"
Enables the X server's "composite wrapper", which performs coordinate
translations necessary for the Composite extension.
Default: false (the NVIDIA X driver performs its own coordinate
translation).
Option "AddARGBGLXVisuals" "boolean"
Adds a 32-bit ARGB visual for each supported OpenGL configuration. This
allows applications to use OpenGL to render with alpha transparency into
32-bit windows and pixmaps. This option requires the Composite extension.
Default: ARGB GLX visuals are enabled on X servers new enough to support
them when the Composite extension is also enabled.
Option "DisableGLXRootClipping" "boolean"
If enabled, no clipping will be performed on rendering done by OpenGL in
the root window. This option is deprecated. It is needed by older versions
of OpenGL-based composite managers that draw the contents of redirected
windows directly into the root window using OpenGL. Most OpenGL-based
composite managers have been updated to support the Composite Overlay
Window, a feature introduced in Xorg release 7.1. Using the Composite
Overlay Window is the preferred method for performing OpenGL-based
compositing.
Option "DamageEvents" "boolean"
Use OS-level events to efficiently notify X when a client has performed
direct rendering to a window that needs to be composited. This will
significantly improve performance and interactivity when using GLX
applications with a composite manager running. It will also affect
applications using GLX when rotation is enabled. This option is currently
incompatible with SLI and Multi-GPU modes and will be disabled if either
are used. Enabled by default.
Option "ExactModeTimingsDVI" "boolean"
Forces the initialization of the X server with the exact timings specified
in the ModeLine. Default: false (for DVI devices, the X server initializes
with the closest mode in the EDID list).
Option "Coolbits" "integer"
Enables various unsupported features, such as support for GPU clock
manipulation in the NV-CONTROL X extension. This option accepts a bit mask
of features to enable.
When "1" (Bit 0) is set in the "Coolbits" option value, the
nvidia-settings utility will contain a page labeled "Clock Frequencies"
through which clock settings can be manipulated. "Coolbits" is only
available on GeForce FX, Quadro FX and newer desktop GPUs. On GeForce FX
and newer mobile GPUs, limited clock manipulation support is available
when "1" is set in the "Coolbits" option value: clocks can be lowered
relative to the default settings; overclocking is not supported due to the
thermal constraints of notebook designs.
WARNING: this may cause system damage and void warranties. This utility
can run your computer system out of the manufacturer's design
specifications, including, but not limited to: higher system voltages,
above normal temperatures, excessive frequencies, and changes to BIOS that
may corrupt the BIOS. Your computer's operating system may hang and result
in data loss or corrupted images. Depending on the manufacturer of your
computer system, the computer system, hardware and software warranties may
be voided, and you may not receive any further manufacturer support.
NVIDIA does not provide customer service support for the Coolbits option.
It is for these reasons that absolutely no warranty or guarantee is either
express or implied. Before enabling and using, you should determine the
suitability of the utility for your intended use, and you shall assume all
responsibility in connection therewith.
When "2" (Bit 1) is set in the "Coolbits" option value, the NVIDIA driver
will attempt to initialize SLI when using GPUs with different amounts of
video memory.
The default for this option is 0 (unsupported features are disabled).
Option "MultiGPU" "string"
This option controls the configuration of Multi-GPU rendering in supported
configurations.
Value Behavior
-------------------------------- --------------------------------
0, no, off, false, Single Use only a single GPU when
rendering
1, yes, on, true, Auto Enable Multi-GPU and allow the
driver to automatically select
the appropriate rendering mode.
AFR Enable Multi-GPU and use the
Alternate Frame Rendering mode.
SFR Enable Multi-GPU and use the
Split Frame Rendering mode.
AA Enable Multi-GPU and use
antialiasing. Use this in
conjunction with full scene
antialiasing to improve visual
quality.
Option "SLI" "string"
This option controls the configuration of SLI rendering in supported
configurations.
Value Behavior
-------------------------------- --------------------------------
0, no, off, false, Single Use only a single GPU when
rendering
1, yes, on, true, Auto Enable SLI and allow the driver
to automatically select the
appropriate rendering mode.
AFR Enable SLI and use the Alternate
Frame Rendering mode.
SFR Enable SLI and use the Split
Frame Rendering mode.
AA Enable SLI and use SLI
Antialiasing. Use this in
conjunction with full scene
antialiasing to improve visual
quality.
AFRofAA Enable SLI and use SLI Alternate
Frame Rendering of Antialiasing
mode. Use this in conjunction
with full scene antialiasing to
improve visual quality. This
option is only valid for SLI
configurations with 4 GPUs.
Option "TripleBuffer" "boolean"
Enable or disable the use of triple buffering. If this option is enabled,
OpenGL windows that sync to vblank and are double-buffered will be given a
third buffer. This decreases the time an application stalls while waiting
for vblank events, but increases latency slightly (delay between user
input and displayed result).
Option "DPI" "string"
This option specifies the Dots Per Inch for the X screen; for example:
Option "DPI" "75 x 85"
will set the horizontal DPI to 75 and the vertical DPI to 85. By default,
the X driver will compute the DPI of the X screen from the EDID of any
connected display devices. See Appendix I for details. Default: string is
NULL (disabled).
Option "UseEdidDpi" "string"
By default, the NVIDIA X driver computes the DPI of an X screen based on
the physical size of the display device, as reported in the EDID, and the
size in pixels of the first mode to be used on the display device. If
multiple display devices are used by the X screen, then the NVIDIA X
screen will choose which display device to use. This option can be used to
specify which display device to use. The string argument can be a display
device name, such as:
Option "UseEdidDpi" "DFP-0"
or the argument can be "FALSE" to disable use of EDID-based DPI
calculations:
Option "UseEdidDpi" "FALSE"
See Appendix I for details. Default: string is NULL (the driver computes
the DPI from the EDID of a display device and selects the display device).
Option "ConstantDPI" "boolean"
By default on X.Org 6.9 or newer X servers, the NVIDIA X driver recomputes
the size in millimeters of the X screen whenever the size in pixels of the
X screen is changed using XRandR, such that the DPI remains constant.
This behavior can be disabled (which means that the size in millimeters
will not change when the size in pixels of the X screen changes) by
setting the "ConstantDPI" option to "FALSE"; e.g.,
Option "ConstantDPI" "FALSE"
ConstantDPI defaults to True.
On X servers older than X.Org 6.9, the NVIDIA X driver cannot change the
size in millimeters of the X screen. Therefore the DPI of the X screen
will change when XRandR changes the size in pixels of the X screen. The
driver will behave as if ConstantDPI was forced to FALSE.
Option "CustomEDID" "string"
This option forces the X driver to use the EDID specified in a file rather
than the display's EDID. You may specify a semicolon separated list of
display names and filename pairs. The display name is any of "CRT-0",
"CRT-1", "DFP-0", "DFP-1", "TV-0", "TV-1". The file contains a raw EDID
(e.g., a file generated by nvidia-settings).
For example:
Option "CustomEDID" "CRT-0:/tmp/edid1.bin; DFP-0:/tmp/edid2.bin"
will assign the EDID from the file /tmp/edid1.bin to the display device
CRT-0, and the EDID from the file /tmp/edid2.bin to the display device
DFP-0. Note that a display device name must always be specified even if
only one EDID is specified.
Option "ModeValidation" "string"
This option provides fine-grained control over each stage of the mode
validation pipeline, disabling individual mode validation checks. This
option should only very rarely be used.
The option string is a semicolon-separated list of comma-separated lists
of mode validation arguments. Each list of mode validation arguments can
optionally be prepended with a display device name.
": , ; : , , ; ..."
Possible arguments:
o "AllowNon60HzDFPModes": some lower quality TMDS encoders are only
rated to drive DFPs at 60Hz; the driver will determine when only 60Hz
DFP modes are allowed. This argument disables this stage of the mode
validation pipeline.
o "NoMaxPClkCheck": each mode has a pixel clock; this pixel clock is
validated against the maximum pixel clock of the hardware (for a DFP,
this is the maximum pixel clock of the TMDS encoder, for a CRT, this
is the maximum pixel clock of the DAC). This argument disables the
maximum pixel clock checking stage of the mode validation pipeline.
o "NoEdidMaxPClkCheck": a display device's EDID can specify the maximum
pixel clock that the display device supports; a mode's pixel clock is
validated against this pixel clock maximum. This argument disables
this stage of the mode validation pipeline.
o "AllowInterlacedModes": interlaced modes are not supported on all
NVIDIA GPUs; the driver will discard interlaced modes on GPUs where
interlaced modes are not supported; this argument disables this stage
of the mode validation pipeline.
o "NoMaxSizeCheck": each NVIDIA GPU has a maximum resolution that it
can drive; this argument disables this stage of the mode validation
pipeline.
o "NoHorizSyncCheck": a mode's horizontal sync is validated against the
range of valid horizontal sync values; this argument disables this
stage of the mode validation pipeline.
o "NoVertRefreshCheck": a mode's vertical refresh rate is validated
against the range of valid vertical refresh rate values; this
argument disables this stage of the mode validation pipeline.
o "NoWidthAlignmentCheck": the alignment of a mode's visible width is
validated against the capabilities of the GPU; normally, a mode's
visible width must be a multiple of 8. This argument disables this
stage of the mode validation pipeline.
o "NoDFPNativeResolutionCheck": when validating for a DFP, a mode's
size is validated against the native resolution of the DFP; this
argument disables this stage of the mode validation pipeline.
o "NoVirtualSizeCheck": if the X configuration file requests a specific
virtual screen size, a mode cannot be larger than that virtual size;
this argument disables this stage of the mode validation pipeline.
o "NoVesaModes": when constructing the mode pool for a display device,
the X driver uses a built-in list of VESA modes as one of the mode
sources; this argument disables use of these built-in VESA modes.
o "NoEdidModes": when constructing the mode pool for a display device,
the X driver uses any modes listed in the display device's EDID as
one of the mode sources; this argument disables use of EDID-specified
modes.
o "NoXServerModes": when constructing the mode pool for a display
device, the X driver uses the built-in modes provided by the core
XFree86/Xorg X server as one of the mode sources; this argument
disables use of these modes. Note that this argument does not disable
custom ModeLines specified in the X config file; see the
"NoCustomModes" argument for that.
o "NoCustomModes": when constructing the mode pool for a display
device, the X driver uses custom ModeLines specified in the X config
file (through the "Mode" or "ModeLine" entries in the Monitor
Section) as one of the mode sources; this argument disables use of
these modes.
o "NoPredefinedModes": when constructing the mode pool for a display
device, the X driver uses additional modes predefined by the NVIDIA X
driver; this argument disables use of these modes.
o "NoUserModes": additional modes can be added to the mode pool
dynamically, using the NV-CONTROL X extension; this argument
prohibits user-specified modes via the NV-CONTROL X extension.
o "NoExtendedGpuCapabilitiesCheck": allow mode timings that may exceed
the GPU's extended capability checks.
o "ObeyEdidContradictions": an EDID may contradict itself by listing a
mode as supported, but the mode may exceed an EDID-specified valid
frequency range (HorizSync, VertRefresh, or maximum pixel clock).
Normally, the NVIDIA X driver prints a warning in this scenario, but
does not invalidate an EDID-specified mode just because it exceeds an
EDID-specified valid frequency range. However, the
"ObeyEdidContradictions" argument instructs the NVIDIA X driver to
invalidate these modes.
o "NoTotalSizeCheck": allow modes in which the invididual visible or
sync pulse timings exceed the total raster size.
o "DoubleScanPriority": on GPUs older than G80, doublescan modes are
sorted before non-doublescan modes of the same resolution for
purposes of modepool sorting; but on G80 and later GPUs, doublescan
modes are sorted after non-doublescan modes of the same resolution.
This token inverts that priority (i.e., doublescan modes will be
sorted after on pre-G80 GPUs, and sorted before on G80 and later
GPUs).
o "NoDualLinkDVICheck": for mode timings used on dual link DVI DFPs,
the driver must perform additional checks to ensure that the correct
pixels are sent on the correct link. For some of these checks, the
driver will invalidate the mode timings; for other checks, the driver
will implicitly modify the mode timings to meet the GPU's dual link
DVI requirements. This token disables this dual link DVI checking.
Examples:
Option "ModeValidation" "NoMaxPClkCheck"
disable the maximum pixel clock check when validating modes on all display
devices.
Option "ModeValidation" "CRT-0: NoEdidModes, NoMaxPClkCheck; DFP-0:
NoVesaModes"
do not use EDID modes and do not perform the maximum pixel clock check on
CRT-0, and do not use VESA modes on DFP-0.
Option "UseEvents" "boolean"
Enables the use of system events in some cases when the X driver is
waiting for the hardware. The X driver can briefly spin through a tight
loop when waiting for the hardware. With this option the X driver instead
sets an event handler and waits for the hardware through the 'poll()'
system call. Default: the use of the events is disabled.
Option "FlatPanelProperties" "string"
This option requests particular properties for all or a subset of the
connected flat panels.
The option string is a semicolon-separated list of comma-separated
property=value pairs. Each list of property=value pairs can optionally be
prepended with a flat panel name.
": , ; :
; ..."
Recognized properties:
o "Scaling": controls the flat panel scaling mode; possible values are:
'Default' (the driver will use whichever scaling state is current),
'Native' (the driver will use the flat panel's scaler, if possible),
'Scaled' (the driver will use the NVIDIA GPU's scaler, if possible),
'Centered' (the driver will center the image, if possible), and
'aspect-scaled' (the X driver will scale with the NVIDIA GPU's
scaler, but keep the aspect ratio correct).
o "Dithering": controls the flat panel dithering mode; possible values
are: 'Default' (the driver will decide when to dither), 'Enabled'
(the driver will always dither, if possible), and 'Disabled' (the
driver will never dither).
Examples:
Option "FlatPanelProperties" "Scaling = Centered"
set the flat panel scaling mode to centered on all flat panels.
Option "FlatPanelProperties" "DFP-0: Scaling = Centered; DFP-1:
Scaling = Scaled, Dithering = Enabled"
set DFP-0's scaling mode to centered, set DFP-1's scaling mode to scaled
and its dithering mode to enabled.
Option "ProbeAllGpus" "boolean"
When the NVIDIA X driver initializes, it probes all GPUs in the system,
even if no X screens are configured on them. This is done so that the X
driver can report information about all the system's GPUs through the
NV-CONTROL X extension. This option can be set to FALSE to disable this
behavior, such that only GPUs with X screens configured on them will be
probed. Default: all GPUs in the system are probed.
Option "DynamicTwinView" "boolean"
Enable or disable support for dynamically configuring TwinView on this X
screen. When DynamicTwinView is enabled (the default), the refresh rate of
a mode (reported through XF86VidMode or XRandR) does not correctly report
the refresh rate, but instead is a unique number such that each MetaMode
has a different value. This is to guarantee that MetaModes can be uniquely
identified by XRandR.
When DynamicTwinView is disabled, the refresh rate reported through XRandR
will be accurate, but NV-CONTROL clients such as nvidia-settings will not
be able to dynamically manipulate the X screen's MetaModes. TwinView can
still be configured from the X config file when DynamicTwinView is
disabled.
Default: DynamicTwinView is enabled.
Option "IncludeImplicitMetaModes" "boolean"
When the X server starts, a mode pool is created per display device,
containing all the mode timings that the NVIDIA X driver determined to be
valid for the display device. However, the only MetaModes that are made
available to the X server are the ones explicitly requested in the X
configuration file.
It is convenient for fullscreen applications to be able to change between
the modes in the mode pool, even if a given target mode was not explicitly
requested in the X configuration file.
To facilitate this, the NVIDIA X driver will, if only one display device
is in use when the X server starts, implicitly add MetaModes for all modes
in the display device's mode pool. This makes all the modes in the mode
pool available to full screen applications that use the XF86VidMode or
XRandR X extensions.
To prevent this behavior, and only add MetaModes that are explicitly
requested in the X configuration file, set this option to FALSE.
Default: IncludeImplicitMetaModes is enabled.
Option "AllowIndirectPixmaps" "boolean"
Some graphics cards have more video memory than can be mapped at once by
the CPU (generally only 256 MB of video memory can be CPU-mapped). On
graphics cards based on G80 and higher with such a memory configuration,
this option allows the driver to place more pixmaps in video memory which
will improve hardware rendering performance but will slow down software
rendering. On some systems, up to 768 megabytes of virtual address space
will be reserved in the X server for indirect pixmap access. This virtual
memory does not consume any physical resources.
Default: on (indirect pixmaps will be used, when available).
Option "OnDemandVBlankInterrupts" "boolean"
Normally, VBlank interrupts are generated on every vertical refresh of
every display device connected to the GPU(s) installed in a given system.
This experimental option enables on-demand VBlank control, allowing the
driver to enable VBlank interrupt generation only when it is required.
This can help conserve power.
Default: off (on-demand VBlank control is disabled).
Option "PixmapCacheSize" "size"
This option controls how much video memory is reserved for pixmap
allocations. When the option is specified, "size" specifies the number of
pixels to be used for each of the 8, 16, and 32 bit per pixel pixmap
caches. Reserving this memory improves performance when pixmaps are
created and destroyed rapidly, but prevents this memory from being used by
OpenGL. When this cache is disabled or space in the cache is exhausted,
the driver will still allocate pixmaps in video memory but pixmap creation
and deletion performance will not be improved.
This option may be removed in a future driver release after improvements
to the pixmap cache make it obsolete.
Example: "Option "PixmapCacheSize" "200000"" will allocate approximately
200,000 pixels for each of the pixmap caches.
Default: off (no memory is reserved specifically for pixmaps).
______________________________________________________________________________
Appendix G. Display Device Names
______________________________________________________________________________
A "display device" refers to some piece of hardware capable of displaying an
image. There are three categories of display devices: analog displays (i.e.,
CRTs), digital displays (i.e., digital flat panels (DFPs)), and televisions.
Note that analog flat panels are considered the same as analog CRTs by the
NVIDIA FreeBSD driver.
A "display device name" is a string description that uniquely identifies a
display device; it follows the format "-", for example: "CRT-0",
"CRT-1", "DFP-0", or "TV-0". Note that the number indicates how the display
device connector is wired on the graphics card, and has nothing to do with how
many of that kind of display device are present. This means, for example, that
you may have a "CRT-1", even if you do not have a "CRT-0". To determine which
display devices are currently connected, you may check your X log file for a
line similar to the following:
(II) NVIDIA(0): Connected display device(s): CRT-0, DFP-0
Display device names can be used in the MetaMode, HorizSync, and VertRefresh X
config options to indicate which display device a setting should be applied
to. For example:
Option "MetaModes" "CRT-0: 1600x1200, DFP-0: 1024x768"
Option "HorizSync" "CRT-0: 50-110; DFP-0: 40-70"
Option "VertRefresh" "CRT-0: 60-120; DFP-0: 60"
Specifying the display device name in these options is not required; if
display device names are not specified, then the driver attempts to infer
which display device a setting applies to. In the case of MetaModes, for
example, the first mode listed is applied to the "first" display device, and
the second mode listed is applied to the "second" display device.
Unfortunately, it is often unclear which display device is the "first" or
"second". That is why specifying the display device name is preferable.
When specifying display device names, you may also omit the number part of the
name, though this is only useful if you only have one of that type of display
device. For example, if you have one CRT and one DFP connected, you may
reference them in the MetaMode string as follows:
Option "MetaModes" "CRT: 1600x1200, DFP: 1024x768"
______________________________________________________________________________
Appendix H. GLX Support
______________________________________________________________________________
This release supports GLX 1.4.
Additionally, the following GLX extensions are supported on appropriate GPUs:
o GLX_EXT_visual_info
o GLX_EXT_visual_rating
o GLX_SGIX_fbconfig
o GLX_SGIX_pbuffer
o GLX_ARB_get_proc_address
o GLX_SGI_video_sync
o GLX_SGI_swap_control
o GLX_ARB_multisample
o GLX_NV_float_buffer
o GLX_ARB_fbconfig_float
o GLX_NV_swap_group
o GLX_NV_video_out
o GLX_EXT_texture_from_pixmap
For a description of these extensions, see the OpenGL extension registry at
http://www.opengl.org/registry/
Some of the above extensions exist as part of core GLX 1.4 functionality,
however, they are also exported as extensions for backwards compatibility.
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Appendix I. Dots Per Inch
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DPI (Dots Per Inch), also known as PPI (Pixels Per Inch), is a property of an
X screen that describes the physical size of pixels. Some X applications, such
as xterm, can use the DPI of an X screen to determine how large (in pixels) to
draw an object in order for that object to be displayed at the desired
physical size on the display device.
The DPI of an X screen is computed by dividing the size of the X screen in
pixels by the size of the X screen in inches:
DPI = SizeInPixels / SizeInInches
Since the X screen stores its physical size in millimeters rather than inches
(1 inch = 25.4 millimeters):
DPI = (SizeInPixels * 25.4) / SizeInMillimeters
The NVIDIA X driver reports the size of the X screen in pixels and in
millimeters. On X.Org 6.9 or newer, when the XRandR extension resizes the X
screen in pixels, the NVIDIA X driver computes a new size in millimeters for
the X screen, to maintain a constant DPI (see the "Physical Size" column of
the `xrandr -q` output as an example). This is done because a changing DPI can
cause interaction problems for some applications. To disable this behavior,
and instead keep the same millimeter size for the X screen (and therefore have
a changing DPI), set the ConstantDPI option to FALSE (see Appendix F for
details).
You can query the DPI of your X screen by running:
% xdpyinfo | grep -B1 dot
which should generate output like this:
dimensions: 1280x1024 pixels (382x302 millimeters)
resolution: 85x86 dots per inch
The NVIDIA X driver performs several steps during X screen initialization to
determine the DPI of each X screen:
o If the display device provides an EDID, and the EDID contains information
about the physical size of the display device, that is used to compute
the DPI, along with the size in pixels of the first mode to be used on
the display device. If multiple display devices are used by this X
screen, then the NVIDIA X screen will choose which display device to use.
You can override this with the "UseEdidDpi" X configuration option: you
can specify a particular display device to use; e.g.:
Option "UseEdidDpi" "DFP-1"
or disable EDID-computed DPI by setting this option to false:
Option "UseEdidDpi" "FALSE"
EDID-based DPI computation is enabled by default when an EDID is
available.
o If the "-dpi" commandline option to the X server is specified, that is
used to set the DPI (see `X -h` for details). This will override the
"UseEdidDpi" option.
o If the "DPI" X configuration option is specified (see Appendix F for
details), that will be used to set the DPI. This will override the
"UseEdidDpi" option.
o If none of the above are available, then the "DisplaySize" X config file
Monitor section information will be used to determine the DPI, if
provided; see the xorg.conf or XF86Config man pages for details.
o If none of the above are available, the DPI defaults to 75x75.
You can find how the NVIDIA X driver determined the DPI by looking in your X
log file. There will be a line that looks something like the following:
(--) NVIDIA(0): DPI set to (101, 101); computed from "UseEdidDpi" X config
option
Note that the physical size of the X screen, as reported through `xdpyinfo` is
computed based on the DPI and the size of the X screen in pixels.
The DPI of an X screen can be confusing when TwinView is enabled: with
TwinView, multiple display devices (possibly with different DPIs) display
portions of the same X screen, yet DPI can only be advertised from the X
server to the X application with X screen granularity. Solutions for this
include:
o Use separate X screens, rather than TwinView; see Chapter 12 for details.
o Experiment with different DPI settings to find a DPI that is suitable for
both display devices.
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Appendix J. XvMC Support
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This release includes support for the XVideo Motion Compensation (XvMC)
version 1.0 API on GeForce 5 series, GeForce 6 series and GeForce 7 series
addin cards, as well as motherboard chipsets with integrated graphics that
have PureVideo support. There is a static library, "libXvMCNVIDIA.a", and a
dynamic one, "libXvMCNVIDIA_dynamic.so", which is suitable for dlopening.
XvMC's "IDCT" and "motion-compensation" levels of acceleration, AI44 and IA44
subpictures, and 4:2:0 Surfaces up to 2032x2032 are supported.
libXvMCNVIDIA observes the XVMC_DEBUG environment variable and will provide
some debug output to stderr when set to an appropriate integer value. '0'
disables debug output. '1' enables debug output for failure conditions. '2' or
higher enables output of warning messages.